This array of new oils reflects my ongoing investigation into the genre of still life painting, a practice which I have pursued simultaneously with landscape painting for many years. Representational painting has for me always signified a commitment to the tradition of painting, and in the case of still life, the time honoured practice of painting from observation.
Each painting in this series is predicated upon a carefully composed arrangement of objects chosen for their visual appeal. Design elements such as form, colour, pattern and texture; transparency, opacity and reflective surfaces; organic and inorganic, found and acquired objects are all integral to the creation of a pleasing composition with the added inflection of a sensory narrative. I look for objects that are beautiful or perhaps poignant in a symbolic way; objects I hope will become a reference to something familiar for the viewer; the consummation to spark a memory - a sensory reactivation of another time, event, or experience in life.
Still Life painting has historically always taken a back seat to grander narratives of human achievement. Abstract painting in the last century pushed the object and figure ground relationship into an arena that has become even more questionable in today’s art market. I have often been asked “why bother to paint, why not take a photograph”? Whilst I do take photographs, it is part of my preliminary process. There remains always a textual difference between what the camera captures and what my eye envisions; what chemicals represent on paper and what I render on canvas with paint.
Painting unfolds in slow time. It is a meditative process wherein hand and eye and mind converge with the medium of oil paint, the mark of the brush, the sensual rendering of form, colour and texture, the delight in capturing the extraordinary world imbued in reflective objects, luminous surfaces, cast shadows and deep recesses, sumptuous tactile fabrics, delicious ripening fruit and seasonal blooms.
There is something human and humble and yet divine in celebrating this joy in the visual world before my eyes. It signifies a desire for beauty and creature comforts which I hope others may also take pleasure !
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