Hope
There are as many ways of expressing intimacy as there are human beings.
I am doing it right now.
Hope
830mm H x 1770mm W
Oil and Mixed Media on Canvas
Morning in Italy
This drawing is an example of both the use of field notes and studio techniques to inform the approach to larger works such as “Hope.” Here there is a study directly inspired by the experience of the morning light across an Italian Landscape, including luxuriously rolling hills and orchard and cultivation marks decorating the fields. This study also includes a heavier use of collage to break into the ways elements are normally seen, most specifically the various trees including Fruiting Orchards and Cyprus.
Perhaps interestingly, there is a sample of Van Gogh as a Cypress amongst the collage. Whilst actually being a native of France, he respectfully belies that border discrepancy in order to allow a nod to the various artistic forebears who informed our way of perceiving the lands of central Europe.
Morning In Italy
300mm H x 400mm W
Mixed Media on Arches Reeves Paper 1994
Bois de Bologne (Midsize VERSION)
This series is based on a visual time lapse experiment that I made as a drawing in Paris.
I was working on a methodology to allow events that happened across time to happen in the single moment represented by the completed canvas surface...
Bois de Bologne (Midsize)
780mm H x 1140mm W 2008
Mixed Media on Canvas
Bois de bologne (large version)
When I was travelling in France to try to extend my knowledge of the so-called ‘greats’ of the visual arts I discovered this huge park in Paris near the Rodin Museum.
Returning some years later I made a drawing in the park across several hours, which I called “Time Lapse Experiment”...
Bois de Bologne (Large Version) 2006
1200mm H x 2160mm W
Oil / mixed Media on board
Italy [AKA Fish Subway]
Italy
This rather large image was the result of early travels in Europe where I had recorded visual notes about the landscape and other experiences that intrigued me, including riding a crowded subway full of foreigners dressed for work.
In this case those two ideas collided in the same work in what I came to feel was an unsatisfactory way.
Eventually I destroyed the painting because I couldn’t resolve the balance between the ideas to make visual sense, but I do think it is an important rule not to ignore your poor efforts and focus on the ‘successes,’ so it is included here as a representative early exploration of something that went awry.
It relates to other works seen here, such as Hope, so the effort was not entirely without result.
Italy [AKA Fish Subway]
1200mm H x 980mm W
Oil & Mixed Media on Canvas
French Village from the Mountains.
I have always been influenced by music in a relatively indirect ways, such as using it to control the energy of the working space in line with the progressive stages of completion...
French Village from the Mountains
900mm H x 575mm W
Oil on Canvas
Brief Visitation (Painting For Ashley)
I have created several versions of this work beginning with the original drawings where the grand old French farmhouse and the vines below were the main focus of my attention, so rustically idyllic in my mind that they seemed to be the measure of my dreams.
Brief Visitation (Painting For Ashley)
1360mm H x 1000mm W
Oil, Collage, and Mixed Media on Canvas 1994