ianwarburton

                                                      untitled, February oil on canvas 90x110 cms How many times does one start a piece of work, find some way along that it might be resolved, decide later that it isn't ( for any number or reasons ), put it away, fetch it out again months later, and start over. I have said before that I do not hold the work that I am engaged in precious in any way. It is just thinking in paint and once a painting has served its purpose the thing is done and can always be reused. A joke with my son the other day went something like; Him how long have you been painting? me: since I was fifteen or so. Him: well where are they all ? me: well, there are three under that one and.....sometimes one needs to keep warm.

oil on canvas 90x90cms                                                                       oil on canvas 120x120cms The first of these is the reworked painting from the previous post and the lower one is came further towards fruition today. I will be returning to drawing following these because I want to figure out a way of melding what I think I am looking at with the emotion generated by the act of working the paint. There is a lot of arm waving going on, a lot of not trying to be too explicit and failing to connect whilst waving too. four foot square does mean I can get quite close to the surface while I move the paint around and try to let go of the things observed.

                                                                  oil on board 154x149 cms I have been working on this painting for a long time, I think, since 2012. It never seemed to come right, never seemed to resolve the alliance of abstract intent and sense of place. Recently I have been in conversation with another painter, an Israeli, who I have known since the eighties. We have talked about what we hope to achieve, about other artists, about form and surface, all those things that one would expect and some that have been surprising. I think that it is true the we have helped each other and I hope that this will continue. Today I was reflecting upon these conversations in my painting room and suddenly I knew what I must do. It is as if a light comes on. I'm sure that this is a common occurrence but when it happens it ...

 There is a very interesting interview with Ann Gale on Painting Perceptions at the moment, plus an interesting blog by Angela Edwards ( www.angelaedwards.co.uk)which currently flags landscape artists. Painting Perceptions and Painter's Table continue to be worth reading. There is also, until February 2022, Late Constable, at  the Royal Academy, London. I received the hardback catalogue today along with Remaking Landscape, John Hubbard.

 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