I’m currently living in a hiatus. Having decided we must downsize to a smaller home, the current financial/political climate has caused the property market to stall making a potential move substantially unlikely. The upheaval potential of a change of lifestyle has impended on my current mindset. The main thrust of which, has been to edit and generally rethink my art practice. Wondering how to move forward, I have started to question the subject matter of my paintings. Having largely abandoned, albeit temporarily, my obsession with swimmers, I’m sure I will return to that at some point, I wanted to investigate in more detail the genre of Landscapes . noticing a book on the shelf , The language of Landscape by Anne Whiston Spirn I opened the pages and read the introduction. The book was recommended to me while I was studying for my MA. I confess I bought it, but did not actually read it then. However, today having time on my hands I soon realised how exciting were her thoughts and ideas. In short, I couldn’t put it down and quickly found myself captivated by the fascinating links she enumerated. This spurred me to rush into the garden to begin a series of photographs.
By taking closeups and then rotating to a different perspective I created new ‘landscapes’. Possibilities for connections and abstract images seem to leap into view. Must keep reading. It’s a long time since I had the energy to cope with intellectual texts but I think it will help to clarify my thoughts.
Difficult to see perhaps but I’ve made subtle changes to this painting since starting to read the Landscape book. Blocked colour stands in for figurative detail. I’m trying to use the materiality of the medium to express my memories of the colours of the soil I walked on during a wintry, sunny visit to Cornard Wood. During the walk I remember trying to conjure the image of a young Gainsborough walking in that exact spot.
It’s a start but much more to do.
