Unquiet landscape.

in progress, oil on wood panel. 150x150 cms.

Landscape painting has always been about what it is like to be in the world and in a particular condition. Landscape painting catches at those unexpected ideas and emotions that come, and so easily go, on days of no particular importance. It shows life not as a development but as a condition.

I have been reading and recommend highly, Unquiet Landscape, Places and Ideas in 20th Century English Painting. The author is Christopher Neve. Published by Faber and Faber. 1990.

In search of the self.

Charcoal on paper. 80x50 cms.

In the same way that not every painting of a man,woman or child is a portrait, not every portrait is intended to be recognised as such but there is an adventure, the adventure perhaps of seeing something unknown appear each day in front of the mirror. We approach the surface to be worked upon with a sense of setting out, of seeing what will happen, under scrutiny, sometimes working quickly, other times revisiting the same drawing or painting until it feels right. But no two are the same.

Thanks to the photograph, we think we know what we look like: but I think that the act of making the image in front of the mirror allows us to find out what we feel like when doing so.

oil on wood. 40x25 cms.

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