While I continue to be happily immersed within the subject matter of my immediate surroundings that of rural pastures and ancient hedgerows and the sense of my experience of being in that place. I have of late had a real hankering to let go of colour and return to a much more limited palette.
20 years ago while studying for an MA in Fine Art my then tutor advised me to scale right back on colour and work with just two, Raw Umber and Ultramarine Blue. This turned out to be great advice, I had so much going on in my work in terms of process, content, subject matter etc… colour felt like the one thing that I could discard.
I found working within that limitation to be incredibly freeing and my work really developed and moved forward. I continued to work in this way for several years and the possibilities continued to be endless and indeed were never fully resolved… I found that I was able to focus purely on physical application and process emphasising greater mood and physical structure within my work.
The painting below is a strong example from that period and resonates closely with where I feel I am now. It is still underpinned by landscape only this time coastal as I was mimicking the actions of waves washing over the sand, leaving marks and traces.
So once again I’ve reached a stage with my painting where colour is the one thing I feel that I can discard. I came to this decision as a result of my usual process of elimination which arrives at the end of each phase of work where I take everything down in the studio and just put up a few key paintings and drawings enabling me to pinpoint exactly what is important to me in my work, what to keep what to discard and therefore how to move forward.
Below are the two very recent works I selected In addition to the painting above which was made in 2003
The painting below is the first stage of my work's development and it is easy to see how although unique it is closely related to the earlier paintings. Each new painting is born out of the last. They are all related and like human beings appear to inherent characteristics directly from each other and those from generations before - they are of the same 'family'. I find it fascinating to see that as my work develops different characteristics reappear in different forms I also find this subtle level of consistency reassuring in demonstrating how my work is grounded in something deeply tangible and meaningful to me and not just made upon a whim. It is true that through a range of approaches I have been making work about my experience of being in the landscape for more than thirty years. I've never wanted to make work about anything else!
