Not walking but looking.

First bonfire in Spring. oil on canvas. 120x120 cms.



After a forced absence from my workplace I have spent some time on this, as winter releases its grip. At this time of the year one of the local farmers can be relied upon to set fire to a swathe of land and give the fire brigade an opportunity that they could probably do without. On a more intimate scale garden bonfires are commonplace.

Because I have not been walking, I have been looking at at small area within the purview of my window again. Like previous posts, this is a painting subject to change and it has changed a lot already in response both to the light on the land, as well as the demands of the painting process. The shifting light was very noticeable some days: it's a problem that requires a solution. It has affected this painting more than I realised because I thought that I was not making a piece about this bit of garden, but using the view to help make a painting.

Some years ago, I made paintings which clearly articulated an idea of the clash of natural phenomena and the threat to man whose implied image was fragile. What I find interesting is that that inter-relation
is still there in what I paint, but small in scale, through the walking, observing, and the standing still. There is this temporal bodily experience relating to a painting made up of successive, overlayering.

I think that making a landscape based (or perhaps a place based) painting requires one to be cereberally,
as well as physically present. The making of the painting proceeds then with all that that implies connected to the sense of place.

At Christmas I received a copy of Chris Stephens's monograph of Peter Lanyon.( 21 Publishing. 2000.)
and though I was aware of his name I had not seen any of his work. It is next on my reading list.