ianwarburton

 Susan Owens makes the case via writers and visual artists for the re-evaluation of landscape over time in her book Spirit of Place, published by Thames and Hudson.I have been reading this during afternoons working on the painting, which, whilst it is in progress and has changed a lot , has been made close up during periods of steppingjutside and just walking about in amongst the space that is part of the garden. It has been interesting to me to make what feels like a different painting, standing close to the canvas, not able to see the edges and then being outside where it appears that there are no edges,

                                                           oil on canvas 120x120 cms   There is the reality of the scene observed and then there is that of the scene experienced. In the case of my daily encounter with the garden that experience is always in flux and it is this shifting relationship which plays out on the canvas. There are times when one has to try to take hold of the changes through say, drawing, and times when the reciprocity which exists between the space without and the space within dislodges itself and can only be grasped at as in a fleeting moment.  I began this painting by using black to set down what I thought might be happening: it was morning and the light was sharp. Colour came later, on another morning with shadow and sunlight moving slowly across the land as I stepped in and out of it.

oil on canvas oil on canvas                                                             black oil, white acrylic on paper

oil on canvas, 150x120cms.  I have been having a very interesting conversation with a friend about thinking and the positions that we arrive at, involving an exchange of images of our work in progress. Over five or so exchanges the paintings have developed although not in a linear way exclusively. In my caseI got to a place where it felt stuck and I had to sit down and think, which led to dozing but, on coming alert the last bit fell into place. I do like it when the resolution sneaks up on one. Sometimes it requires the painting to be put away for a while, or a walk to be taken or a grass path to be mown but sometimes it's just magic.

oil on wood panel. 150x150cms I keep coming back to this piece, partly because it is always on the wall of my painting room and difficult to ignore and also because it has never felt on the edge enough of what I imagined it might be, or turn into. So I keep thinking about it and often repaint sections. It might be better now. The left bottom section pushing against the central section, acting as a stop and a calmer space too. Our woodlands are often ringed with tape where horses are grazed and the tape can vibrate in the breeze. The tape both encloses  and excludes and whilst a lot of my thinking is about inclusion, dialogue, engagement, I do like the idea of a hurdle performing its sentinel duty, connecting at the same time, waypoints.  

100x100cms 65x78 cms 80x80cms 110x80cms 100x100cms 100x100cms 80x80cms 80x80cms A lot of artists work is instantly recognisable. One gets a sense that they know what they are about. They have a way of working. I do like to look people up to see whether their work has changed over the years: mine has. The focus has been very different at times. It has come to me though that I am now where I began at fifteen or so and that although I did not want a landscape painter label that is precisely what I have become: a painter of landscape. Now that I have come to terms with it, I think that I am okay with it and that all the feelings of being in fields and among trees is what it has been all about all along. These images are not in any order and the last one is not last even though I have been working on it a while, because number six is. In fact the two occupied me at one and the same time - perhaps they are equal last. I swing back and forth and there are drawings that veer toward representat...

June /July garden  I am having a conversation via e mail with a friend who loves the challenge of painting.  We have been discussing whether we need to replicate in some way what we are looking at or translate it. I think that we are leaning towards the latter but we are not there yet. I go back and forth: that bothers me but at the moment I feel unable to separate the need to stand and stare from that of needing to work from what I am looking at. It works best when I can turn off the outside and turn on the inside but can't always do it. I am thinking that my friend is finding it difficult too. We are both trying. This is where she is now. Miri Felix. Garden.