Familiar Ground

Following the short interlude of the most recent pair of paintings (those based on the vintage Pifco electric hair trimmers packaging), we return to the familiar ground of the ongoing compositional exploration of selections from the stock of sawn cylinders of silver birch – again looking to the work of Edmund de Waal for a little inspiration – and the ‘homely’ environment of the still life.

The particular objects selected on this occasion were from a batch not previously utilised and contemplated, being a little slimmer and in some cases shorter than those used up until now, thus more have been accommodated within the relatively compact dimensions of the 20″ x 16″ canvas, which represents a more-or-less life-sized arrangement of shelves and objects.

Again, the in the observation and translation of the scene, the materiality of the medium and the manner of its manual application is of equal importance in the resolution of the picture-as-object, depicting objects in space (and here, these objects and their visual and physical qualities are rather user-friendly, it might be said)- as with Ivon Hitchens, the intention is that “the tree is paint and the paint is tree”.

'Silver Birch Still Life #5'

oil on canvas/20" x 16"/February 2019

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'Woodscape #9'

A little late in the posting, but a second silver birch-centric ‘woodscape’ composition based upon information collected from the local woodland was recently ‘resolved’, following quite a protracted wrestle, a harder-won image than is sometimes the case, and is presented below.

'Woodscape #9'

oil on canvas/50 x 100cm/Jan - Feb 2018

The process began from the choice of a photographic snapshot taken on a summer evening during last year, featuring the basic composition of the tree-lined rough pathway that forms the left third of the canvas and the denser area of trees of the remainder, this being something inspired to some degree by certain of Ivon Hitchens’ paintings employing a device suggestive of a particularly recessive space to one side of the picture plane.

Subsequently, empirical observation was carried out on a frequent basis in order to establish details, the space as experienced and so on, as has become the habitual working practice in relation to the ‘woodscape’ paintings.

More silver birches have been transplanted into the scene of the painting than were present in the image of the woods as they exist, exchanged for the ubiquitous pines (this being a small area that was not subject to ‘management’ last year), these being based on observation of nearby examples and represented in a manner to be consistent with the sense of the whole, e.g. the fall of dappled sun-lit highlights in particular.

As with the others in the ‘woodscapes’ series (plural – i.e. the original seven of 2016-17 and these latter three comprising the latest development of the aesthetic), the materiality of the paint and its presence and presentation as such directs the technical approach to the process, emphasising the physical qualities of the medium in terms of texture, fluidity and so on – the painting is about the act of painting, with the medium of oil paint, demonstrably so, supported by the armature of the visual subject.

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The paint is tree and the tree is paint

Following-on from the recent ‘in progress’ report (‘Digesting October…’), today we present the first painting of our local woodland subsequently brought to some form of resolution over the course of Saturday afternoon spent listening to the 2 CDs of ‘The Essential Leonard Cohen’, but a selection in celebration of the work of the songwriter supreme ‘born with the gift of the golden voice’ (at least in the guise of the narrator of the mighty ‘Tower of Song’), whose passing has sadly been announced – many fine words have been written in tribute, not least on the Guardian website on & from Friday, also including Gerry’s on his ‘That’s How The Light Gets In’ blog, another to follow avidly. The recordings left behind, of such exquisitely-crafted & masterfully-performed songs, will resonate down the years, of that there can be no doubt.

‘Woods #1’

oil on canvas/24″ x 48″/October-November 2016

The painting itself, as ‘finished’, probably achieves something of what was intended whilst leaving plenty of scope for development. Formally and, from that, technically it observes the obvious horizontals and verticals of the subject matter and represents a ‘tactile space’, independently as a painting and as analogous to the physical experience of being actively present in the landscape (treading upon the pine needle-covered and mossy ground whilst the tall straight columns of the trees confront as one navigates a path through and tower overhead), treating figure and ground with equal gestural weight in the pursuit of a more integrally ‘overall’ painterly surface where, striving to achieve that balance between facture and image, the means of representation and that represented, ‘the paint is tree and the tree is paint’ to paraphrase either Ivon Hitchens himself or otherwise something that was written about his work (precise memory fails). It must be admitted that, once exposed to (the potential of the influence of), one sees the scene(s) through Hitchens’ compositions, those spatial sequences and intervals across a wider panoramic or ‘cinematic’ format, and this of course inevitably lends itself to a particular aspect of the appearance of the painting, characterised as it is in part by more elongated swiping brushstrokes.

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