ARTIST STATEMENT
My
early years were spent in Wales growing up on the coast in a remote
farm. I was surrounded by the Preselli Mountains where the blue stone
used to build Stonehenge was quarried. The standing stones and lay
lines
of this ancient culture are common place. Farmers plough around the
enormous monoliths in their fields without question. The mysterious
undertones of this place have really shaped the way I view landscape.
Though I have lived in
California for a while now some of the places I paint are still foreig,
unusual
and even humorous.
I never have considered myself a Plein Air
painter although I suppose that is easily seen in my work. I
look for the relationship of forms like a series of dramatic events. I
choose places that have a strong effect on me but also are surprising.
I am interested in the fractal nature of the landscape in a playful
way. In the group of recent paintings that I have titled 'Little Big
World' there is a play on the really small forms and details
interconnecting to each other like a underlying tapestry.
There
is always a temptation to depart into the abstraction that shaped my
earlier work and I do feel that when the work is viewed in print, the
drama of the mark making is diminished and the representational
'landscape' becomes more obvious. In reality, I hope the balance
swings the other way and this is one of the reasons why the oil
paintings
work on such a large scale.
Finally,
I would like to add that all the work comes from initially painting on
site on quite a large scale, normally in watercolor on paper. It is the
only way I can see clearly with my senses in tune with my
surroundings. There is usually little time to negotiate the work, I
just get the information down and it is a very fluid almost unconscious
way for me to work. The larger oil on canvas paintings are derived from
drawings and watercolors and explore the ideas that this process brings forth.
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