Ground, Campeche

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Ground, roots

Nail

Centipede cask

Wire

Twig

Shell, stalk, stones

Ground, Campeche

These are "gothic" in the sense that they are like clues- concentrated and significant and related to mortality. They relate to previous series of photos such as Witchy, which is an open-ended series concerned mainly with forests.

But if they are clues, then they are clues to what? Something that happened, not long ago. Perhaps somethings no-one though consequential, but which are dramas, nonethless.

They were taken with a cellphone and I'll admit that I was not entirely aware of their contents until I started uploading them onto the computer: a process of detection.

Working with the camera allows a concentration on detail. This is something I find tiresome in painting, where I am much more involved with gesture and movement. When painting, my own psychological responses intervene with much more force, too rapidly for much detail.

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Campeche

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Campeche, September 2017, oil on card, 17 x 19.5 cm  duscarded

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Rio Tavares, meadowland

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Rio Tavares, meadowland, oil on card, 11 x 15.5 cm - available

An underappreciated aspect of painting is surface: especially the surfaces of supports- canvases, card, wood, glass or aluminium, each of which bring specific qualities and meanings to a painting. I paint on card which is primed first with linseed oil-heavy paint, then coated with a lighter later of thinned paint which dries with a brittle surface that ensures a good tooth.

I will re-use these cards when the pictures painted on them are unsatisfactory, and the process of re-priming them lends them distinctive qualities. These qualities affect enormously the final piece: they are the point of departure. Some of the cards are brilliant white- good for very bright sunny days, Others are slightly toned down with various greys, light ochres and yellows. 

One can, of course, cover the whole card at the outset of a picture, and, Renaissance-style, construct picture from layers, thereby obliterating and sense of the underlying surface.  But I think more fun is to use the  particular texture and colour of  a card as a compositional element in itself- much as Chinese,watercolourists, and woodcut printmakers do with paper.

A double carrier with two card supports. 

They are glued to masking tape. 
To remove card simply pull the masking tape tags. 

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Campeche, looking south

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Campeche, looking South, oil on card, 18 x 14 cm    SOLD

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Painted in an impressionist technique. 

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Campeche, January, 2015

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Campeche, January, 2015, oil on card, 16 x 18 cm   SOLD

Almost an empty beach: delightful.

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The road to Campeche- woman in a red dress

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The road to Campeche- woman in a red dress, oil on card, 12 x14 cm  SOLD

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Poplars, Rio Tavares

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Poplars, Rio Tavares, oil on card, 12 / 14.5 cm - unavailable

Quite hot: delightful to drive down these back roads, to sit painting in the car, listen to Bach and then have a wonderful Brazilian kilo lunch.

It doesn't get much better.

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Petrified Jellyfish

Petrified Jellyfish: a contradiction in terms.

You can find these by the beach near Campeche. When you collect them they are usually quite damp, and they take a couple of weeks to dry out, getting lighter in colour and weight as this happens. They are quite brittle when damp, but as they dry become less easy to break.

I recall as a boy a holiday in Denmark at a beach on Jutland. I remember somehow catching Jellyfish and taking them out of the water , and how they tore in my hands when I did that. I wince with a David Lynchean sense of the pain they might have suffered as their bodies ripped apart: I feel guilt about it now, though I wonder really if jellyfish can feel pain any more than plants can: I am probably being very sentimental.

As a child I sometimes did things merely to experience the moral sentiments that arose as a result of the transgression. I once stole a chocolate bar from a small shop on Seafield Road, Aberdeen, because I wondered what the sensation of guilt would be, and how I would tolerate this. I was cruel to other children too, simply because I might be.

All this serves to illustrate that moral feelings are learnt and not inherent, since I did not grow up in a household or society that accepted theft or cruelty.