There is a place we go, high up in the hills above our hometown, when I am missing the sea. It’s a reservoir and though I’m pretty sure it isn’t tidal, it fills me up somewhat in my incessant quest for water. Water is the answer to all troubles. At least any troubles I’ve encountered and I guess for that in itself I should be grateful. There’s no situation that can’t be improved by a trip to the sea, or failing that, a visit to the reservoir, lido, a wild swim, a warm bath. Even a glass of wine water does a lot to improve a fractious, anxious mind.
Continue reading...
A painting is a collection of memories. Hazy recollections, refracted through time, and played out in paint and ink on canvas. There are abstract recollections, daubed with thick, clumsy strokes. And other memories, recalled in detailed technicolour, where painting becomes an obsession. Dreams given substance in fat brushstrokes, in careful lines. The light and the shade. Some memories are obliterated completely, destroyed, painted over, scratched out. Minds are untidy, overgrown places. Wonderful, terrible places. Repositories of stories. They spill out what they will.
Continue reading...
As an artist, I am inspired by nature, but I do not paint scenes from the natural world. My paintings are not abstract reiterations of the physical appearance of the woods, or flowers, or birds. Rather, I paint how I feel when I am immersed in nature. I try to capture the giddy euphoria of standing amongst a riot of wildflowers, or the calm from resting in the quiet coolness of a pine forest. Painting how I feel, rather than what I see, also opens up the opportunity for the viewer to play a more active role in interpreting the work.
Continue reading...
On the first sweltering hot day of the year, M and I went to a weir for a wild swim. It was one of those long, languid days of summer. Such days are rare, and all the more precious. Days that bear the spirit of summer itself. Like summer has been caught in a net, and with reverence, pressed, dried, and stored in a box of totems. Every now and then, when sentimentality strikes, the box is opened, and the contents laid before the curator, like a moving picture. Perhaps, those long summer days that belong to the past are not so different to today. Time is a charlatan. It casts a soft, diffused light over the past, beautifying even the ugliest memories.
Continue reading...
I am not a morning person. They say that some people are born that way, and some people are not. I am a perpetual night owl. My mind sparks and buzzes, as the sun falls out of the sky.
Continue reading...
