Dear Diary, Not what I thought.

When I started to work the other day I found myself making these, which, was not what I thought would happen after mulling ideas about moving through the landscape. These have much more of a fixed view about them although whilst it is true that I was standing still, more or less, neither are fixed from a single point of view - a photograph taken from where I was standing would bear little resemblance to these views - and they are much closer to the fact of my eyes moving about from one place to another so, continuing to explore moving through, though from a different perspective. or a number of perspectives. Focus changes as the eyes range through a space and I do think about that but I 

don't know how to do it, reference it, on a flat, fixed surface and in this case the example of Cezanne is not what I am looking for and I am not looking to create a system for myself but I do want to convey what I think I am seeing as much as the way that I think I am seeing it.

Walking through ideas.

        

                                                                4928  422. morning ride.

Since landscape is an idea and we like to locate our ideas in some way so that we may plot our location and know where we are I have been thinking about how I might register my walking or cycling through the landscape in terms of painting. We are so used to the window, the frame and yet the Chinese have told the story of an event ( isn't walking an event?) using a scroll and therefore the landscape unravels in time as well as through our hands and eyes.

 Now that we have Google maps and street views I can see the plot of my paths before I set foot on them. I can see where they go before I go there. Yet when I traverse these routes there is so much information that it is hard to know what to do with it and how to use it to make the painting, which is not so much a recording of my journey as a distillation of it.

                                       

tracks on the land.light on the hill, afternoon / evening. 120x120cm.

My painting is about ideas: I re-use them to further an idea. I have re - introduced the grid because it is the tool used to plot the landscape on the map as much as the tool used to plot a painting. It also does something to the surface that helps me think about space - that which I move through and experience - and how I might place field and sky, tree and path. The space shifts as I look at it. This bit becomes clearer for a moment but then less clear as my eyes refocus and I would like to try some paintings that deal with that aspect of looking. So these are just two more things to think about.   

                                     

                                                        oil on wood panel. 120x120cm.

oil on canvas. 50x50cm.

This and that.

                                            
                                                         oil on paper 80x60cm.


This is the first of the bigger paintings (not so big) that I mentioned as occupying me. If earlier posts are referred to then it will be pretty clear how this came about. The common thread is how the eye presents things seen, the sharpness of a small part, the blurred periphery. The felt linear border between spaces fore and aft. Every time one looks at something there is an amazing wealth of information which needs editing or accounting for. Normally I build up a surface from this information which is not a retailing of what the eye sees but which uses the information for the purpose of making something other. I look at this thing and consider how it might be used to make that painting. It is in the end just a painting: what is interesting is how it becomes that and what it tells us about the process .

Plus ca change.

  

There are ten years between these two selfies. The autoportrait exhibition closed this years programme at La Tour , Montsales and now I can think more about working with my surroundings although that never really goes away and no matter what, is always ticking over. There are a lots of horses parked in the fields around here (which I suspect is a tax dodge of some kind) and with them comes a lot of white tape to persuade them to stay put. This has begun to find its way into my painting so I'll see in what way it can contribute.