on the lie of the land

paper, crumpled, textured, samples or forms, exampled... some 'arty' photographs, in the slow build-up to creating something new... (all in good time; soon enough...)this looks like a decaying leaf...as does this...and this looks like a craggy rockscape, or a crevasse...another rocky, mountainous barren landscape, one that looks oddly familiar...from my antarctica sketchbook, june 2010you can see more of my antarctica sketches here, when, despite that fact it was early june and the start of the summer, i spent some time out in a virtual, cold wilderness...there are many landscape painters in this region, and it is perhaps no surprise that the east anglian landscape should be interpreted in the main quite realistically, representationally - conveying an appealing impression of 'being there' for the viewers, more than the artist's individual experience. i find it difficult to adequately quantify why some paintings engage and draw us in and other paintings fail to - whether success or failure is just down to a painting's style, the painterly process, or whether the fact of the matter is - are they being truthful or playing along with the lie of the land?an artist friend asked me the other day if i knew the paintings of michael porter - no, i didn't - but on visiting his website i was very surprised to discover that he paints a little like me, or perhaps, i paint a little like him - but there are more figurative elements applied to the shifting, textural grounds of his large canvas paintings. the colours of a autumnal leaf, a river's surface with its underlying pattern of vegetation, old woodlands, craggy rocks and found pebbles are just some of his visual influences - all interpreted in a very organic and sensory manner... i could see the connection to my very own lichenscapes... i found the visual contrast of a freely-worked surface with very finely worked botanical details quite mesmerising (at least, as seen from the photographs)...michael porter's large studio in cornwall... jealous, moi??For many years I have described what I do as ‘making’ paintings rather than ‘painting’ paintings, even though the materials I use normally conform to those used by traditional artists, What I attempt to do is use the natural characteristics of paint itself as a means of describing nature.  For me, creating a painting is not simply a mechanical process. Like the land itself, it is something you sense - through your feet, your hands and your eyes.Michael Porter, interviewed by Peta-Jane Field, Art in Cornwallhe puts it very well, what it means to translate an experience into a painting. it becomes something akin to but independent of its source. paint & canvas is the vehicle, the surface is the transmitter, the subject reveals a message, the gaze is the confirmation and response becomes its meaning... it seems somewhat fortuitous to have discovered porter's work (via my friend's recommendation, having seen similarities of process and subject in my work) for it has affirmed in me that it is still good to make paintings - to manipulate the material of paint, to use the transformative qualities of paint to create illusions, sensory surfaces, a surface that is alive, that contains depth & intricacy... he also reminds me that one has to look, to experience and then to paint for many years to refine one's concepts  about nature and the environment... trust your instinct, be truthful and then just do the work......there is an interesting discussion going on over at the guardian website regarding the threadneedle art prize - the perennial representational art versus conceptual art debate, good art, bad art, skills, or no skills, etc... no shocks or surprises perhaps, a photo-realist painting by boyd & evans won the top prize and most of the other works look quite ordinary on the threadneedle website, but perhaps you really have to be there...in the run up to the artworks exhibition, there seems to have been lots of practical, day-to-day, non-art issues to deal with ... but i did grab a peaceful hour or so on a very pebbled beach... some quick sketches in pencil, acrylic and watercolour...sketchbooks at the coast...i think i need to retreat a little (in blogospheric terms) until after the demonstration of 'painting without brushes' next week at the artworks exhibition - except that i do, very occasionally, also use traditional paint brushes... and yes, this really is the artist at work on those lichenscape paintings...i am currently exhibiting two new large paintings, lichenscape I & II and a series of small works, aka the mouldscapes, at the 11th annual artworks exhibition at blackthorpe barn, 11 September to 3 October 2010, it's open daily 10am – 5pm…until the next time......

cold comfort [in twenty five drawings]

a change of scenery (or what i have seen-ery), an escape to the white wilderness of Antarctica... it seems a little remote, but relatively quiet... a few (twenty five thus far) quick sketches done over the course of a couple of days (in the evenings)... a fake journal, a bogus adventure, a hoax expedition... nothing is ever as it seems...antarctica sketch - watercolour and graphite pencilantarctica sketch - watercolour, coloured pencil and graphiteantarctica sketch - watercolour and graphite pencilantarctica sketch - watercolour and graphite pencilA5 sketchbook pages...but wait, there's more... three quick panoramic landscape sketches...it's always good to have a couple of sketchbooks when out in the field, so to speak... ten more sketches of the Antarctica landscape in a smaller A6 sketchbook...glaciers - pen, pencil and acrylic on papermore glaciers - pen, pencil and acrylic on paperi feel that i have only just begun to scratch the surface...and the motivation, aside from feeling slightly out on a limb this week, is Mr Benn (going out through the in-ternet door)...