I work from real life observation rather than from photographs or memory because I find so much more information and inspiration in the process of looking. The way I perceive colour and my love of composition in are two of the most important elements in my work.
I work best when I am happy. My paintings are for the most part created in the spirit of celebration, joy, beauty and wonder.
I believe that the prevalence of the photographic image, which has for many years been influencing figurative painting, is something that needs to be questioned in relation to the understanding
and honouring of how we perceive the world around
us. The majority of
people accept the photographic image as depicting “reality”, whereas I believe that our experience of the world around us, particularly when we connect with what we see, is very difficult to capture by camera.
I mostly use gouache and
distempera (pure pigment and size) on paper or canvas. The matt velvety texture
and the quality of the colour in the distempera medium has always been a successful way
for me to express local colour without too much emphasis on modelling, gleam, or
chiaroscuro, so the images often might not appear to be “lit” from a direct source.
I also use oil on canvas
or board. Oil has a marvellous intensity of colour, is easy to mix the exact
colour needed, (unlike distempera which changes as it dries) and there is no need to protect it when
dry, so no glass divides the paint and the viewer. By now many of my oil
paintings are almost indistinguishable from those in distempera.
I am interested in the writings of the poet Gerard Manly Hopkins
and his religious and metaphysical convictions which discuss “isness” and instress”
Stephen Greenblatt quotation re: inscape
“Hopkins felt that everything in the universe
was characterized by what he called inscape, the distinctive design that
constitutes individual identity. This identity is not static but dynamic. Each
being in the universe ‘selves,’ that is, enacts its identity. And the human
being, the most highly selved, the most individually distinctive being in the
universe, recognizes the inscape of other beings in an act that Hopkins calls
instress, the apprehension of an object in an intense thrust of energy toward
it that enables one to realize specific distinctiveness.”
I believe that we are each
drawn to different and specific colours, scents, forms, materials, music,
lights, moods, and people and that these “attractions” are formed because at both
a metaphysical and physical level we “recognise” or “connect with” particular
energetic frequencies which resonate with our own, and that when we experience
this harmonic it will engender a feeling of belonging, of recognition, of pleasure
and of significance. I believe that all works of art can generate and emit
energies which resonate and harmonise and which can literally be a positive
force in their environment. This means that works of art can generate powerful
energetic and positive energy.
I believe it is terribly
important to remember that painting is a process, not a production, and that
the energy and intention which goes into the creation of a painting is extremely
important. A painting is a by-product of a mediation and interaction with the
world and, for me, with the shapes and colours of the subject matter. If this
process is not nourishing and bringing real excitement and joy as well as a
challenge and a struggle, then why do it? The process of making work can be
really deeply rewarding and worthwhile and I believe that this will be evident
in the work both visually and vibrationally.
"A painting is not a picture of an experience, but is the experience"
Marc Rothco.
