Land-Marks Exhibition

In this recent series of paintings  for the Land-Marks exhibition my focus continues with my love and fascination with landscape and the natural world....in some of the paintings I have been exploring the idea of losing the horizon line in an attempt to become more immersed in the whole painting surface from top to bottom and from side to side without relying on the horizon as a pictorial device or point of reference.

Shadow and Form 50x50cm Oil on Canvas

Corner of the Lake, 30x30cm Oil on canvas

Shadow and Form 2 50x50cm Oil on Canvas

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My first experiences of seeing proper mountains was in Skye nearly 30 yrs ago ( John reminded me that it was more than 20 plus!!) What fascinated me then and still does is how differently ones' experience of any landscape becomes as you travel through it and into it.

Disappearing into moorland on undulating ground often rough and boggy...the sense of your own scale and place in the landscape changes as you move on . At some point the view that you were gazing at is the place you are now physically in. Simple perhaps but I have always found this so interesting.

Scrambling and climbing on sea cliffs, crags or mountains also gives one a unique and compelling view of ones'  surroundings.

Whilst not quite aerial the elevation experienced reveals hidden forms and shapes within the landscape.

Love looking down

In Praise of High Places 1    30x30cm Oil on Canvas

Mist rolling in on top of Sgurr Dearg

I have heightened the constrast in this photo to emphasis the rock formation  which was a starting point to the painting above titled In Praise of High Places 100 x100cm Oil on canvas 

 Sitting or standing on a multi pitch belay gives you time to gaze...shapes often appear slightly flattened out,dykes(lake District) snake their way along, forming enclosures for grazing live stock, trees and farm building too appear differently....more abstracted and unfamiliar. Walking up hill you may encounter,  a small lock/lake ....which can appear suddenly and on a sunny day they appear to shimmer like glass in the bright sun light.

All over blue sky, Lakes

Climbing is part visual part sensory.....the rock becomes a map through which your eyes, hands, feet and whole body navigate and again what is so interesting is how the route appears from the ground and how this often contrasts to how it feels when you are up in and on it!

Sea cliff climbing in Cornwall

Me on the sharpe  end of the rope, Lakes 

Absailing with Owl in the Cuillins

My hope is that my experiences translate in some way in these paintings. There is a lot of blue in them but looking through my photographs taken on location reflects this, way more than I had really considered.
Of course the paintings are not intended to translate in an obvious way...colour is more of an emotional charged expression and less about actual representation. The shapes and passages within the the some of paintings are an attempt to depict  a kind of meditative sensory experience. 

T

Study

Study

The  compositions are often a deliberate juxtaposition of viewpoints...a kind of quasi cubism depicted by mosaic like motifs are juxtaposed with more amorphous elements...one that confuses and diffuses form and structure.
This is something so familiar up in the mountains especially in inclement weather.

The exhibition Land- Marks is on at The White Fox Gallery, 51 High Street,Coldstream TD12 4DL until October 26th. The gallery is open Tues-Sat 10am-4pm (Wed 10am-1pm)

Crop from Land-Marks 120x150cm Oil on canvas

Ulpha 100x100cm Oil on canvas

Remains of a Distant Times 40x40cm Oil on Canvas

Owl taking in the mountain air

Enjoying the rock

Through the window, on the Window Butress

John on the Inaccessible Pinnacle

Spring Blog 2019

Time to blog again! The hiatus has been too long. March nearly over, clocks about to change and a two week break from teaching in a fews day time...feeling positive.

Since December 2018 I have been in the studio religiously at least 4 days a week. Climbing, cycling and general outdoor life have been somewhat neglected but I have managed to walk the dog and take photographs on my studio days...thankful for this.

The build up the Borders Art Fair was exciting and although I didn't need to produce all new work I know well that at some point I will need to take my foot off the gas and attend to other things in life...so as the saying goes ..make hay while the sun shines..

My stand at The Borders Art Fair 2019

I spent yesterday doing a serious sweep of my website. I have unpublished many of the pages and changed the headings and groupings of all the pages. You can  take a look at here .

It's not a fancy designer made website, however  all things considered it does now look  less cluttered and clean. 

My work is so varied and so colour filled that I worry terribly that the site looks like a mad sweetie shop....maybe that's me?!

One day when I sell that one big £££ painting I will ditch the templates and get a designer on board! 

Ok so a couple of things on my mind. Painting and what  I call my other work...the experimental, the not fully explored, the technological desert of my experience, the disconnected, all the things I want to do as well as painting! 

Firstly painting....does it really matter that an artist weaves in and out of representation and abstraction? Does it really matter if an artist weaves in and out of expressive mark making to a more metered calmness in their mark making?

I don't know, just putting it out there.

In my most recent paintings I have taken the path of the more metered calmness. The titles for these paintings Couch 1, 2 and 3 are simply a synonym for the word layer. My studio faces towards an elevated view, over the river Ale, a tributary of the Teviot. 

100x100cm Oil on Canvas

I can't see the river unless I wander down the steep slope form our garden but I know its there and listening carefully in winter when its swollen of course you can hear it. The elevated landscape of treelines, sloping hillside and water intrigues me...the shapes in the landscape appear to shift and change with every variation of light.

 One moment everything appears in sharp relief and then in the next moment  shapes can virtually disappear in a shroud of mist. All water dependant of course.

Sketch Book Freedom

In the paintings I am interpreting this landscape from top to bottom as it were, I have no desire to create perspectival space...this is related to my early and continues interest and love of  Cezanne's painting.. He simultaneously flattens out space but also creates a depth through ingenious colour mixing and mark making.

Initial starting point for the Couch Paintings

On another level I have been thinking about the geology of a landscape, remembering school geography lessons and those facinating diagrams of strata...I like thinking about the unseen in a landscape and hope that this new layering process can become more of a focus for my painting. More of this later.

So my other work...I will find a place for it I am sure.I so want to invest more time into it and revisit casting, photography, clay and installation work. Sharing a common theme of enquiry may perhaps hold the key? 

The Bonds that Tie Us
30x30cm Acrylic paint, Giclee print and 10mm Glass
The giclee is under the glass, the painting is mounted on top of the glass

The Bonds that Tie Us  2

Both pieces were in the Visual Art Scotlands' wonderful Alight exhibition earlier this year.

 

 Below some of the photographs that led up to The Bonds that Tie Us work.

New Exhibition-Contemporary Borders

 

I along with another  five Borders based artists am taking part in new exhibition titled Contemporary Borders. Although our work is very different to each other, collectively we  share one thing in common and that is our engagement with landscape as subject matter whether directly observed or distilled into  a more abstracted representation of it.

Some of the artists I have met and know their work and some I have not, so I am looking forward to meeting everyone and seeing how our work hangs in the lovely Christopher Boyd Gallery within Old Gala House.

The private view is Friday 8th of June, 6.30-8.30pm. Please come along if you can, a warm welcome awaits.

The show then runs from the 9th until the 12th of August. Opening times are Mon-Sat 10-4pm and Sun 1-4pm.

 

Open studio May Bank Holiday w/k

The 1st of May and the weather feels out of sync but in Scotland we comment but seem resigned to these unseasonable temperatures. Small sacrifices for the beauty that surrounds us here in the Borders?!

I'm gearing up for the coming w/k of  art@ancrum an annual event I am kindly invited to take part in and having my studio and home slap bang in the middle of 'little lovely', the village of Ancrum it makes perfect sense.

I've enjoyed the Winter  and Spring  months in the studio, working steadily exploring and developing work in response to the ever changing landscape surrounding us.

The ploughed fields reveal their hidden colours at this time of year and appear reddish pink, sometimes a muted umber depending on the light, time of day and direction in which viewed. This simple thing has enthused my dog walking and commute to work, no end in the last few weeks.

The subtle growth and somewhat raucous dawn chorus enriches each day should you care to notice.

Borders Art Fair this w/k!

Margaux and Blue  100x100cm Oil on Canvas

I am looking forward to taking part in the Borders Art Fair this weekend. This year I am joining other artists and showing in a larger stand with the White Fox Gallery in collaboration with the wonderful owners, Virginie and Stephen. 

Believe it or not, Margaux and Blue started it's life as a painting referencing the Cheviot Hills and the livestock that inhabit them, mainly sheep. As I began working further on the painting, my pathway veered wildly off course and all that remains of my original idea and subject matter is a reference to the sheep folds situated throughout the hills.

Additional and continuing formal concerns for me are to do with the horizon, a pictorial device I frequently make use of in my work. 
In Margaux and Blue I have unburdened myself (to some degree) of this  and in doing so am feeling quite liberated.... Who would of guessed that a single line, a division of a flat surface could cause so much angst!

If you are in the Borders this coming w/k the Fair looks like it is shaping up to be a great event. Please come and say hello, stand 41.

Thanks for stopping by.


 

New work

It has been a while...I have been working  over the winter on a  new series of paintings (about 20 or so) for an upcoming exhibition titled Purlieu which opens on March 30th.

Being incapacitated as I was with my recent ankle operation and subsequent recovery period I was literally tied to the studio...I had little excuse not to work and as it was it kept me going for the 3.5 months that I was unable to walk unaided.

The paintings for Purlieu reference  places I know and frequent, some literally on my doorstep and others further afield.

 They are in no sense literal in terms of the actual topography of the land or environment of these places......they are intended to be more of a representation of a memory or semblance of place.

I have had tremendous fun working on these paintings and have enjoyed the virtually uninterrupted time I have had to work on them.  The exhibition is hosted by LiveBorders and is on at Coldstream Museum, 12 Market Street, Coldstream TD12.

I have to admit there is something quite quirky and a little surreal to be exhibiting alongside the permanent display in the museum which relates to the Coldstream Guards! 

Purlieu runs from 30th march -4th June 2017

Open: Mon-Sat 9.30am-12.30pm,.1.00-4.00pm & Sundays 2.00-4.00pm. 

The private view is on the evening of the 30th from 7.00-8.30pm. All welcome!

NT 6297 2505   1  100x100cm Oil on Canvas

NT 6297 2505   2  100x100cm Oil on Canvas

  Groundswell  40x40cm Oil on Canvas

On Reflection

This week our Level 2 students were invited to join a number of other artists and students from Edinburgh and Sunderland for part of  a three day creative residency at The Haining  , Selkirk to work on ideas surrounding 'Reflections' and glass as a medium.

The idea seemed to me to be very much about responding to the location and creating very experimental almost ethereal 'art' works.The artists taking part ranged from sound artists, to sculptors, glass artists and everything in between. The university students came from courses in architecture and glass.

It was a very enjoyable day and we were  fortunate that the weather was so sunny. 
Our students form Borders College are just starting out on their creative lives and this opportunity  certainly placed them outside of what they usually associate with creativity and making art...an important and useful learning curve!

What is so very good about events like this one, apart form meeting new people and discussing ideas is the provision of time and the 'permission' to explore, experiment and respond in the knowledge that what is important is, that  it will be alright...out of small kernels of ideas come more resolved things that will grow and travel hopefully or not? 

Experimentation is key, and the idea of impermanence is central to this way of working......most of the work made during the artists time at The Haining will exist through documentation and memory. I only managed to see part of what everyone else was doing but no problem there as a selection of work made on the residency will form part of Reflections an exhibition of contemporary glass, at The Haining, Selkirk from 20th of April -8th of May.

 I took a series of photographs on the day ....my idea was a simple one and centered around the notion of how to disrupt or intervene with the environment around me through using some reflective materials in the process.

 A simple but  interesting thing to do!

I have been thinking about what I could do with these images and one idea would be to have them printed onto( Japanese) tissue paper, set them on the water surface and watch them dissolve...maybe I will.

Thanks to Niall Campbell and Inge Paneels for arranging our visit.