Grounding: an exhibition in Duns: more photos

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In these photos, the smaller pictures are mine; the larger are by Jane Rutherford.

I have elven paintings on display.

Four Indian pochades

Me

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Grounding: exhibition opens tomorrow

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Pochades from Pushkar (above) and Jaipur

Grounding is opening tomorrow at 3pm. It includes eleven of my paintings, mainly from India alongside pots by Jenny Ozwell and canvases by Jane Rutherford. The hanging is very nice, thanks mainly to Mark Haddon: I will post further images shortly.

The exhibition will also make John Eccleston`s short story, En Plein Air, available for the first time from Realm of Stucco press.

Do come.

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Grounding: printed invitation to a exhibition ar No31, Duns.

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Printed invitation to an exhibition at No31 in Duns, in the Scottish Borders, with Jenny Ozwell and Jane Rutherford. 

Do come!

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Joaquina, Joaquina, sea, the end of March, 2016  SOLD

 oil on card 15 x 13 cm - Framed

This painting will be included in this collective oup exhibition, which will include the work of just over one hundred artists:

Showroom: the December open at no31

December 6, 2025 – December 16, 2025

Opening Saturday, 6th December, 3-6pm

Exhibition opening times:

From Saturday 6th to the 16th of December, every day from 1pm to 5pm

No31
29 Newton St

Duns

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Housing and trees, Garthdee

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Housing and trees, Garthdee, oil on card, 27.2 x 31 cm - available through No 31 Gallery

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The Don and dunes

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The Don and dunes, Aberdeen, oil on card, 32.1 x 29.5 cm - available from No31 Gallery

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Five previously unpublished pochades from Tunisia

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El Jem, oil on card, 2012, 13 x 13 cm - available

El Jem, mosque, oil on card, 14 x 12 cm - available

Douz,from the hotel roof, 2012, oil on card, 13 x 10 cm - available

Douz, from 23 Mars Hotel, 2012, oil on card, 11.3 x 10 cm - available from No31 Gallery

Douz Cemetery, oil on card, 1.5 x 7.6 cm - available 

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Lagoa, dunes; São Bento do Sul

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Lagoa, dunes, July 21, 2021, oil on card, 24.5 x 21 cm -Available through No 31 Gallery

 

 

 

 

An extremely clear day, like Mantegna.

 

 

 

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I resolved to go painting in São Bento do Sul next week for two nights.

 

 It's over a year since I left the island for more than one night.I will stay in a little country hotel. I don't really know this corner of Santa Catarina, though I have driven through it and found it enchanting.

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A trip to Chile: Pucón, part 3, views just outside the town; travel and oil painting

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 Pucón, a hill, farms, oil on card, 24 x 30 cm- available through No 31 Gallery

This is one of the more successful of the trip. The larger scale allows for greater fluency. 

Oil painting and travel

A month trip, two sessions per day, is a good concentrated period to work through ideas about painting. It's a good time to learn about a place. I find that a longer trip tends to lead to some sense of exhaustion, a need for recuperation, for experiences to sediment and pass through filters. I work very well if the weather and location are kind. But I have never extended the trips beyond six weeks. 

There is also the lugging things around factor. You need no more clothes for two months than you do for a week. But with the paintings you will need to take more protective carriers so wet pictures can be transported safely. Oil paintings such as mine, which are thinly painted and pretty well without impasto need to be packed individually until a week has passed and then they can be packed together. Inevitably something gets damaged- it's wise to incorporate something of Wabi Sabi into your mental armory.

For me making art is better done alone. Human social needs and creativity can combine in performance arts such as theatre. But, for me, with landscape painting- at least the romantic landscape tradition that I am involved with- social needs and creative necessities sit in different zones. But it would be nice to have company at mealtimes, of course.

I had a thought that going all the way down, adding another month to reach Patagonia, might have rewarded me. The long thin shape of Chile cries out for a linear trip from hot desert at the north down to icy mountain in the south. But the costs would have become hideous: Chile is not a super-cheap option like Peru or Bolivia: a single room in in a budget place is about 25$. 

A separate Patagonia trip is on the cards, however.

 Pucón, a lane with children, oil on card, 28 x 21.7 cm -discarded

In retrospect, I find this picture a little overworked. I liked it at the time and perhaps I'll come back to liking it.

 Pucón, big blue hill, mist, oil on card, 19.8 x 23 cm discarded

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Forest,- young and twisted trees- December 2019

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Forest,- young and twisted trees, December 2019, oil on card, 24 x 29.5 cm 

- available through No 31 Gallery

I took a different path and found this grove. The pinks and browns of the fallen leaves are pleasing to paint.

 I`d like to come here again in a few days time- the atmosphere is very calming.

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Paintings from Chicago- Part 2- in the Loop

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Chicago, view up West Congress Parkway   Available through NO 31 Gallery
 oil on card, 21.5 x 17.2 cm

The Loop is a showcase of huge modern and modernist buildings. Sometimes this is very visually impressive, when the light glints off glass or creates vast shadows

 I was moved on from on working long a canal walkway as the area belongs to some financial corporation. I had that feeling about a lot of Chicago, as if there wasn`t an intimate relation between inhabitants and owners. There is no street life. The shops on ground level aren`t interesting, just the usual dull chains. There are immense corporate sculptures by Miro and Picasso. It's interesting how the magnification of their works robs them of curiousity. They just become something to fill a void and signify something like "success" or "wealth"  . 

There is a giant, bullying Trump building- there are various other monstrosities each higher than the last. Grandeur is expressed in glass and metal- older buildings use stone, with enlarged pseudo renaissance motifs, or Art Deco. The tendency to massiveness functions well at a distance but close up the effect is often simultaneously intimidating and bland. 

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April in Britain and France: Part Two: Paris

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 Paris, oil on card, 16 x 18.5 cm    AVAILABLE

 Montmartre, oil on card, circa 18 x 16 cm     Available at No 31 Gallery

The two above are the result of my perambulations in central Paris: not an especially easy place for painting, given the crowds of tourists who make it difficult to work peacefully. And, as a generality, famous landmarks rarely make for good paintings, as it is very difficult to develop an original attitude to them. But I am very pleased with my Eiffel Tower picture.

I would have been better off with an easel: I have since acquired a portable one: rather heavy.

The three below are from or near my little apartment in the 12th Arrondissement, Bercy, which I found more satisfactory, partly because there is so much space to work, and partly because it is not really part of the museum city, and has industrial and railway features that, aestheticised, have a definite anarchic visual appeal.

For many painters, French painting is a touchstone: this is certainly the case for me, and a trip to France is in some way inevitably a homage, specifically in my case to painters such as Utrillo or the Impressionists. I think my picture of Montmarte has sufficient Utrillo in it to count as a homage.

Railways, Bercy, oil on card 16 x 18 cm  - available

This picture, above, has many damp spots

 Bercy, looking West, oil on card, 16.5 x 22.5 cm  AVAILABLE

Near  Bois de Vincennes, Paris. oil on card, 16 x 18 cm     AVAILABLE

Rooftops, Bercy, Paris, oil on card, 16 x 18 cm  AVAILABLE

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Many thanks to Frédéric Glorieux for his kindness in Paris.

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A drive to Urubici

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 Urubici: looking up a street, 9am, oil on card, 12 / 14 cm   AVAILABLE

Landscape overlooking Urubici, oil on card, 13 /13 cm - unavailable

 

 

Street, Urubici, oil on card, 13.3 / 9.5 cm - available through No 31 Gallery

 Five from Urubici, with wristwatch for scale.

I spent a day or so painting in Urubici, a place I love, and which seems happily free of Florianopolis's trashy Barbie culture.

The curvaciousness of the landscape invites Art Noveau designs.

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