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Mirror-Mirror 46x46cm oil on canvas
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Its not
long now until the opening of my solo show ‘Scheherazade’ at The Doorway
Gallery www.thedoorwaygallery.com.
The show will be opening on the 7th November and will run
throughout the month until the beginning of December.
I have
worked and lived with this collection of paintings for over a year now and it
really does take that long to get them where I want them, before I feel
confident that they are finished.
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| Picking Bilberries 92x76cm oil on canvas |
I have put
together a collection of around 20-25 paintings, that imbue a similar colour
palette and subject matter. A world of the ordinary with an undercurrent of
story telling and mystery, that brings into the work a timeless connectivity to
worlds gone by . I like to layer and
weave references to other eras and cultures, for example the painting Picking Bilberries, which reads as a
seasonal painting of a woman harvesting wild bilberries growing on top of
a dry stone wall. I was influenced
by a Roman wall painting at the time and conveyed that in the dress and hair of the figure. I am also enjoying here the references to the
edge of the wood, with those cautionary
childhood fairy tales in mind. Another edge of the wood painting is ‘Mossy Pillow’, this painting was
inspired by visiting my mum who was moving yet again and looking through a trunk of old photos from her
childhood. It was a rare one of her
looking so blissfully happy and beautiful holding up her pet dachshund
surrounded by her beloved father, mum and younger sister. For me it was so
poignant because her family broke up later, with her father moving to South Africa, leaving her broken hearted.
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| Mossy Pillow 92x76cm oil on canvas |
For this
show I was looking at Mogul decorative art and patterns , as can
be seen in the large still life ‘Fisherman’s
Table’. This painting is a very
round about interpretation of the fairy tale The Fisherman and his Wife. This is my favourite fairy tale from my
childhood and I have always been fascinated by it. It really resonated with me as a child and
continues to do so, to me it illustrates a deep sense of fundamental moral
truth. Too late for the property
speculators and over indulgent banks, I think.
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| Fisherman's Table 92x102cm oil on canvas |
I have
reintroduced my pug from the Rococo exhibition, and for some strange reason he
seems to have taken the place of the Persian King in the painting ‘Scheherazade’, well that’s artistic licence for you.
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| Scheherazade 92x102cm oil on canvas |
To me, the pug breed, embodies laid back
confidence and charm, nothing like the neurotic maniac that the story actually
describes, but there again this is a perfect example of how my work is not
illustrative and the subject matter is a means to an end for me. All these approaches to getting a body of
work together are devices that provide me with a starting point and scaffolding
on which to finally get down to what really painting is all about for me, and
that is manipulating colours and paint around a two dimensional surface until
they look and feel right. And how do I
know when a painting is finished. Well
its as simple as one day walking into my studio and realizing that I don’t have
to repaint any particular passage, that is screaming out for me to change, one day it
just rests well on the eye and I can then look at it objectively and then I
know I can do no more for it and I move on to the next one.
