Something of a deviation from the habitual roster of visual
subject matter in this instance, but the resultant painting came from something
of a need to return to a past concern via the medium of a specific drawing.
Going back the better part of 30 years - before, indeed, I
even embarked upon a programme and process of formal art education that took me
from foundation to postgraduate level - I’d been interested in the recording of
stone circles, initially inspired by the fact that one such was present and often
walked past in the town in which I ‘grew up’, Flint in north Wales. This
particular monument had no ancient provenance, as a number in the British Isles
do, dating rather from the 1960s when it had been erected to acknowledge the
fact of a cultural event (the Welsh National Eisteddfod) being staged locally,
but still it became an object of fascination purely in itself and material
fact, it’s ‘being there’. Accordingly, I stood and drew and photographed the
circle and its individual stones on a number of occasions, into my foundation
year - where such preparatory material was developed into at least one painting
- and, having discovered the existence of another Gorsedd circle at Bailey Hill
in the neighbouring settlement of Mold (curiously the ‘county town’ of
Flintshire), which subsequently became the subject of some sketches and a large
painting completed in the unintentional ‘gap’ year between foundation and
undergraduate courses. Relocating to Manchester to pursue what soon become an
abortive initial attempt at the latter, during what transpired to be my first
and only term there, there was presented the opportunity to go on a few days’
field trip north to the southern Lake District, being based in Keswick, and,
from there, to visit the Castlerigg stone circle, a genuine, bona fide ancient
site (as described on the English Heritage website for readers who might wish
some background information as to its history), which naturally was appealing
given my ‘previous’ with the subject matter.
An on-site sketch duly took place and it has become this
record, almost 25 years hence, that forms the basis for the painting
(re)presented today, the reconnection with inspired as it has been by an
‘archaeological’ dig through the archive of sketchbooks (recalling its
existence as a fact) itself initiated by the recent discovery of another
Gorsedd stone circle in Acton Park on the way into Wrexham, but a couple of
miles from where is now home (it transpires that north Wales, and indeed the
wider country, is dotted with such formations), which has duly been visited and
photographed and is consequently on the back-burner as potential grist to the
drawing/painting mill. I might add that stone circles disappeared from the
artistic horizon after the curtailment of the Manchester enterprise and have
featured only to be photographed on a few occasions when revisiting Flint since
(blogged here).
So to the painting and the process of its making.
It was decided that the single drawing made in situ at the
Castlerigg circle would serve as the point of departure and, essentially, the
sole reference: I took no photographs on the occasion of being there and,
although there is a multitude of photographic evidence of Castlerigg available
online, not one image seemed to capture the scene from the viewpoint I’d
assumed to observe and draw. Such an image was sought so that it might support
the evidence I’d collected on the day, although photography, of course, that
monocular beast, will never (be able to) offer the same binocular visual
experience (let alone the multi-sensory one) of being present before the motif,
as was the case in this instance. Subjectivity is obviously also a factor,
however objective one might intend to be in the recording of such empirical
experience, in the act of drawing (whilst looking), thus my ‘memory’ of the
experience could be regarded, particularly allowing for a time-lapse of 25
years, as having only a limited reliability.
This being the case, it was taken as a positive that the
drawing and nothing more of real substance (save a glance at few photos
illustrating a sense of the general environment) would provide the means from
which to create the painting, that it would be the physical instantiation of
‘memory’ upon which I’d have to rely in the absence of any other recollection
(of which there really was none, specifically, other than a general knowledge
of the extreme mutability of the Lake District weather/light conditions and so
on that could be gleaned from memory and other drawings made during the field
trip).
'Castlerigg Stone Circle, 4pm, 26/10/94'
charcoal, watercolour and pastel on 2 x A3 sheets of paper(landscape)
At first, this seemed daunting - as readers familiar with
this blog and my work will know, paintings are habitually made from either
close, constant study of an arrangement of still life objects within a defined
domestic space, or otherwise from reference to life and familiar, lived
experience, supported by drawings (with the occasional photo as supporting
evidence or compositional inspiration), as in the ‘woodscapes’ I have
periodically painted over the last few years and to which I can refer either as
I paint or otherwise pop into as and when required to confirm certain details
of form, texture, colour, space, etc, as they are literally beyond the garden
fence at home/studio and accessible at all times.
I decided to paint over an existing ‘failed’ canvas (this
one), another novelty, using its texture as the first physical layer, and
proceeded accordingly, to this end, a painting of a drawing of an empirical
experience, the making concrete of a memory of sorts, which might have a
certain ‘hauntological’ aspect (?).
'Castlerigg Stone Circle, after a 25 year-old sketch'
oil on canvas/50 x 100cm/April 2019
[detail]
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[detail - viewed from left-side angle]
[detail - viewed from right-side angle]
[detail - viewed from right-side angle]
As ever, communication of the physicality of the medium and
the means of its application are a primary concern, and landscape, especially
featuring such objects as standing stones, seems a most appropriate vehicle to
do this, particularly having to contend with the underlying texture of the
already painted surface, encouraging the making of lovely buttery marks of oil
paint.
This might be a one-off or lead to continued experiments of
the kind, either in terms of stone circles as subject matter or old drawings as
source material, or indeed both, but first, another still life beckons –
although, somehow, there seems something very like a still life, albeit an
exterior one, about a stone circle when I look at this painting.
