paint

I want paint to stand in for the luscious, sensual, carnal, ecstatic beauty of nature…

      Painting is not the conveyance of a view but rather a quest for an expression of the feeling of ecstasy within nature. Painting what is “felt” is more difficult than describing what is “seen”. For this I need to explore, experiment and create my own vocabulary in the art of painting.

      I’ve always loved to blend and mix colour till it reaches the perfect, creamy consistency and I love precise colour, exact in tone, hue, and intensity. Now I want even more from paint. It has to work with all its power and potential to perform the greatest possible task. I want it to stand in for nature; not represent. I want something beyond ordinary observation.

       Degrees of transparency in some colour substances allow for glazing and enable me to build up my paintings in delicate layers in the early stages. With a medium carefully chosen to work in the “fat over lean” rule I can also use glazing in the later stages of the work.

      …but an artist has to carve a path into its vast mysteries. With a working palette of around 30 colours and an intimate knowledge of their properties, I can compose in colour in a way similar to that of a musician with an orchestra. It’s overwhelming but thrilling.

       Every day is another deep dive into colour making, always searching for exactly that particular colour as part of an exact grouping of colors essential to making the painting right.

      … its about searching in the subtle complexities and deeply sensual qualities of oil painting for a language to match the “feel” of nature, learning to paint with a joyful choreography of coloured gestures in the hope of describing what it is to be here, now, in the deep rapture of being alive, while we remember the transitoriness of life and the profound, philosophical importance of our joy in nature.

       I begin with pastel drawings made sitting out in the field. Pastel is useful for rapidly collecting the impressions of a moment. It’s so fast, I can catch some of the colour and the exhilaration I feel.

       Then in the studio, with small scale studies and colour notations I can begin to experiment with the possibilities suggested by what I remember and the pastel impression.

       It’s a time to translate the experience into an invented new language in paint, exploring each individual colour in relation to the whole and play with composition, space and colour mood.

       The possibilites are infinitely variable so this is the chance to focus the direction and ambition of the larger scale oil painting that will be the final work.

        …will be in the beautiful medium of oil and the scale of canvas, often 90 x 140 cms., will try to match the scale of the experience. As the final oil painting begins it’s a search for paint in its most sensual and voluptuous state, blending and mixing, till it’s the perfect consistency.

        Then finally in the laying on of colour there’s the emotional quality of the gesture, in the handling of the brush. It has to speak of the elation that nature gives us.