Widescreen Version

Today the opposite of tomato is 'Code: Selfish'

Finally, an update of recent painting practice, this example being the latest in the series of still life studies of a selection of the sawn cylinders of silver birch, (re)presented as a panorama suggesting a woodland space rather than the domestic arrangement it in fact is.

The physical support is a length of shelf from a deconstructed unit (which thus has a relationship to the similar horizontal plane on which the objects are composed and actively observed), over which canvas has been stretched.

As is habitual, the application of the paint is intended to make of the painting an object and foreground itself as handmade material fact as it represents other objects in space.

'Silver Birch Still Life #4'

oil on canvas on board/15.5 x 78cm/January 2019

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'Woodscape #10'

Being the third of the current silver birch ‘woodscapes’, this composition takes as its inspiration and starting point a location and view a few yards to the right of the first in the sequence and features a representation of information gathered from a photographic snapshot and then mostly from empirical observation and notated sketches over a series of return visits in accordance with
working practice in relation to the woodscapes as subject matter.

'Woodscape #10'

oil on canvas/50 x 100cm/February 2018

Again, the technical emphasis is on communicating the nature of oil paint as a textural, fluid medium and the act of painting with it and attempting to present an analogy to the physical presence of the landscape and being present within such an environment, with its profusion of sensual information.

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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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Returning to the Woods

Following the recent immersion in the photorealist portrait project, the Christmas recess has encouraged a return to thoughts of engaging with the local woodland and representations of the experience of being amidst that was providing the grist to the creative mill at this time last year and indeed continued into the Spring.

These considerations turned to active contemplation, with brushes being taken up and applied to a canvas that had originally been composed and underpainted last June, becoming a painting featuring as its image-content a mossily-floored copse of silver birches, indigenous trees that feature sporadically around the peripheries of the larger areas of commercially-planted pines and larches that still, after extensive culling early last year, form the bulk of the woodland.

On Saturday, some form of resolution of the canvas was arrived-at, an image of the resulting object, on the easel, pictured below.

‘Woodscape #8: Silver Birches’

oil on canvas/50 x 100cm/January 2018 (begun June 2017)

Previous rules apply, with the intention of achieving a painterly surface, a physical record, a ‘tactile space’ analogous to the empirical experience of being present in the woodland with its profusion tending to over-abundance of visual and other sensory information. Whilst keen to emphasise the texture of the support and medium, this was reined-back somewhat from the previous explorations, feeling them perhaps to have had a bit too much paint thrown at them for its own sake, resulting in a certain clagginess, hopefully allowing this canvas to breathe a little more. At the same time, the painting process was freed from the rigid horizontal/vertical brushwork of the previous attempts, led by the strict verticality of the subject matter of the pine trunks, which in retrospect seem a little too obvious. The nature of the silver birch bark lends itself to a more horizontal approach and this in turn helps achieve a more ‘overall’ surface. As ever, whilst trying to plot a path at least some way in to represented spatial depth, the application of the paint is intended to return the spectator to the immediate picture plane at any given moment, as might be appreciated from the details below.

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Back in the Woods...

'Woodscape #7'

oil on canvas/20" x 16"/May 2017

Following the brief return to the two most-recent white pears compositions, whilst simultaneously percolating the idea, this painting sees a continuation of the autumn/winter ‘woodscapes’ project, this time on a smaller scale than the previous ‘cinematic’ canvases that originally explored the subject matter and more physical painting technique, the impetus provided by a request from the Gresford and District Community Library for a donation to their upcoming (8th July) fund-raising Summer Fair auction.

As with the larger canvases, the emphasis is again on the materiality of the paint used to convey the embodied experience of being present within the woods and the (over-)abundance of information one is subjected to.

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Another Exhibition

Saturday morning and the opportunity to accept a most generous invitation by MyPAG(the good people of the Maes y Pant Action Group) to exhibit my recent series of paintings representing aspects of that very woodland at their annual plant sale and coffee morning, to which we donated some of our proliferation of tomato seedlings and treated ourselves to a young raspberry plant. Also donated to this very good cause and community resource, after deliberation by Trevor, Sue and Andrew, was 'Woodscape #1'.

Here, resting nice and informally by still life table top arrangements (a pleasing juxtaposition, given the other strand of my painting practice, of course), are pictured:

'Woodscape #2'

'Woodscape #3'

and 'Woodscapes' #5 (right) and #6

Appearing in Print

A pleasant surprise on Friday evening as the new edition of our free local community ‘Essentials’ magazine arrived through the letterbox featuring an almost verbatim representation of an exploratory email I’d sent the editor a couple of weeks ago on the occasion of two of the ‘Woodscape’ paintings being selected for inclusion in the Wrexham Open 2017 art exhibition. Now here’s hoping there’s a bit more interest locally as a consequence.

The Wrexham Open 2017 - a Photo Essay

Currently showing at the ‘Undegun’ gallery and studio space in Wrexham town centre, the Wrexham Open 2017 art exhibition, featuring a wide range of contemporary work by professional and amateur artists from the local area and beyond, including a couple of my recent ‘Woodscapes’ (#2 and #3) which I was fortunate to have selected (from a submission of three) for inclusion. For the first time in a few years, it’s good to see one’s work in the context of others’.

The first sighting of my ‘Woodscapes’ #2 and #3 in context.

‘Woodscapes’ #2 and #3 in their immediate context

‘Woodscapes’ #2 and #3

‘Woodscape #3’ (2017)

‘Woodscape #2’ (2016) (with close invigilation!)

A particular favourite, Mark Folds’ ‘Nothing On’.