Another place that seems to conjure the sublime for me is Dunwich with its strange contradictions e.g. the Sizewell nuclear power station and the Minsmere bird sanctuary. The work that I started based on the Gorse Walk at Dunwich Heath is of less importance to me now in this project and I want to concentrate on the rig structures near the power station (looking at the juxtaposition of these man-made objects with the sea) and also on the sea and shoreline. You wander away from society and this is what you see – the odd structures from the past and present, the nuts and bolts of our man-made existence and also the desolate, sublime, exquisite, dangerous planet. These are my themes.
The painting (top left) was based on a photograph of a tower structure in the sea off of Sizewell power station. I used masking tape to paint in the linear shapes initially. Some cropping of the image ensued (shown in the stages on the left) finalizing on only the lower part of the structure and omitting the horizon. In leaving out most of the structure I felt that the remainder had more impact because it is not self explanatory or “picturesque”. It is adjacent to the blue sea and interrupts it and that is the effect that I wanted.
