Annual Review 2024

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Annual Review 2024

The Don, estuary, October 2024, oil on card, 25 x 30 cm - available

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 Travels

I returned to live in the UK, specifically Scotland.

 I am overjoyed to be back in the United Kingdom, which, however demoralised it may feel, is such a culturally rich, enjoyable place, with many interesting people.

 And, critically, it is where, if anywhere, I belong. The weather is pretty awful, however. It is often cold, and the darkness of winter is unpleasant. I`m trying to think of ways to get away during the worst months. I dislike being shut indoors so much.

Therefore, I`m looking at options in Asia, and the Mediterranean.

 

Social Media

Like many, my broad feelings about social media have altered from seeing it as a space offering communicative and commercial possibilities to being a zone dominated by morons, willingly  exploited by crooks and manipulators.

 Perhaps I, too, am a moron? Having that suspicion, I restrict my usage to what I consider the minimum necessary to maintain a  presence: a new picture on Instagram every couple of weeks or so, and all new pictures on Facebook. Thus, I maintain some contact with the public without deeply entering the morass.

 

Flickr

 I have 944 followers, down 2. I stopped posting here

Blogger

 There are 85 followers, a decrease of one. There were 465 visitors, with Singapore and Hong Kong bringing the most recorded. But the stats do not seem dependable.

Crown Street, (near Portland Street), Aberdeen, oil on card, 27 x 27 cm - available

 

Instagram 

The site with landscape paintings - tadeusz_deregowski - has 404  followers, up from 392. The one with photography - modestphotographybytderegowski- has 116 followers- no increase.

These numbers, in Instagram terms, are very low and are likely to remain low as I will continue to post infrequently.

Saachi

I didn't sell anything here this year though it is now open for sales.

 

Facebook

 I continue to post here though it is an unpleasant site run by people whose ethical positions are  questionable.

 

Photography

I took few photos.

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Painting

 

Allotment, Garthdee, oil on card, 30.2 x 24.5 cm - available

I  worked steadily to explore Aberdeen, the city, parks, seafront, and some suburban areas. Aberdeen offers a great deal of variety and there are many places still to visit. The changing moods of the city, as the seasons progress is charming. 

Technique

I returned to oils and this has been very pleasurable. The depth and weight of oils, the splendid colours, so rich, and the diversity of textures making it easily the king of paint media.

I am currently experimenting with beginning paintings using first the strong colours unmixed from the tube. Then, to apply mixtures. Then, thirdly, to lighten the colours with yellows- including Naples Yellow. The final stage is  to apply colours mixed with Titanium White. 

The purpose of this is to place strong colour as the foundation of the painting. I have felt that the previous method (where I move from pale colours, mixed down with Titanium White, later going to darker or brighter ones) has led to some timid, and occasionally washed out, or chalky, pictures.

I have steadily attempted to paint to a larger scale, creating bigger carriers to allow this.

Writing

 

I  didn't write in 2024. I do not feel like it, and I don`t want to force it. I often feel I have nothing to say but I don`t think that`s a bad thing.

 

Westburn Park, Aberdeen, entrance, oil on card, 31 x 27 cm - available

Exhibitions and Sales

I exhibited work in Frauhaus in Aberdeen, at Coppa Coffee, the Heinzel Gallery and had work with the Society of Scottish Artists. I participated once with the monthly Art Bizarre  at 3 Mad Hatters, Justice Mill Lane.

I sold about twenty  paintings altogether in 2024.

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Next year: 2025

 

I begin 2025 in India, an escape from the dark and cold of Aberdeen, and the chance to go somewhere which has lurked in the back rooms of my imagination for the best part of a half-century. 

The India trip is largely Rajasthan, but will include time in Delhi and Agra, as well as an excursion to Chandigarh and then up to Shimla and further into the valleys of Himachal Pradesh. 

What follows on my return at the end of March is unclear, but I hope to be able to show some work in Duns in the Borders of Scotland. It could be that the India trip points me in a new direction. Perhaps it will incline me to go to Nepal? Or other parts of India? 

 

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Saachi Art Sales- relauched

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Saachi Online Art Sales

Saachi Art is an established site for the purchase of Artwork, based in California but operating worldwide. It has an excellent reputation, providing  high level of customer service, and its Trustpilot rating is justifiably high.

I have reopened my Saachi Art page -  a selection of paintings can be bought there again (it was closed while I was moving back to the UK).

Here is my Saachi profile page-

https://www.saatchiart.com/account/profile/115898

Here are the paintings for sale there- 

https://www.saatchiart.com/account/artworks/115898

I will continue to sell pictures directly through this Blog, or through other sites or direct contact, however.  If you are interested in anything, my email is Tadeusz598@yahoo.co.uk

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Annual Review 2019

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2019

Travels

There were two complete trips: to Peru and to the UK; another will begin on 26 December, to Chile.

 Arequipa, a view from Ponte Grau, oil on card, 22 x 25 cm

The Peru trip lasted six weeks and was a good, extended painting session. One can really go forward doing two solid sessions a day, 5 times a week. I returned with as many as fifteen good paintings. The pictures were of a larger size than on previous trips. 

Green Park, London, Avenue, oil on card, 24 x 30 cm   SOLD

The UK trip was not a success in terms of making paintings because of bad weather. I hade been looking forward to doing paintings in Scotland's beautiful west coast. What a fool! How it poured down, and I even got a cold- in August.

 I will not gamble my time and money in this way again and instead when I go to the UK in 2020 I will also go to a southern European place where I can work happily and cheaply: southern Spain or perhaps Portugal beckon. However, the small exhibition in Edinburgh was well received and sold well. 

The work: travel painting

There was a gradual but definite scale increase and an attempt to use bolder colours and shapes. I continued also to produce black and white still life pictures. I continue to explore expressionistic approaches to landscape. I moved apartment and studio and with this had the chance to discard weak work. Over time one becomes more clearheaded about what is good or not. 

One the whole, the reasons for a work being a success are not technical but connected to the my psychological state at the time of making. A good picture arises from a balance between knowledge about the subject and it's novelty. If it is too familiar one becomes deadened, taking its peculiarities for granted. If it's too unfamiliar, one flounders.  The lack of seasonal variation here is unfortunate: seasonal changes serve so well to renew interest in a landscape through the year.

For this reason, attempts to criticise the works lead to consideration of the mental conditions in which a picture was made. Happily, satisfactory mental conditions arise readily, predictably: when I travel to new places. And happily, the world is very big. To maintain that balance between the familiar and the unknown though I tend to return to places I have at least some previous relationship with.

When I began travel painting the idea that I was telling some autobiographical story- the painter travelling diarist aspect- enlivened me, and I thought about the story I might tell about a trip and a place, and myself, through a series of paintings. With time, however, those stories lose their consequence and one is just left with a series of paintings, good, bad or indifferent. And, of course, the novelty of the activity disappears.

 But a sense of mission is surely vital in any enterprise, however philosophical one might be about the results years later. Without enthusiasm- joy indeed- one might as well stay at home watching Netflix.

In Brazil

Forest, December 2019, oil on card, 24 x 29.5 cm

My paintings here explored woodland and forest, to the almost total exclusion of other subjects. Woodland shade is so agreeable when the sun is blazing down. I explored mainly two places, in Santa Antonio da Lisboa and Parque Florestal of Rio Vermelho. It would be good to find other places to explore as eventually these will become stale.

Still life painting

The corner of a table, a book, my diary, a spoon, my wallet and part of a chair

oil on card, 16.7 x 15.2 cm

It can be said that still life painting is simply a diminutive for of landscape, albeit one in which artists have the God-like power to arrange its motifs as they see fit. I like to work in black and white on these, to have that starkness.

Exhibitions

There were two exhibitions, one in Lagoa and one in Portobello. The former did not sell, the latter did. There appears to be no almost no market for art in southern Brazil. This is not simply a matter of the appalling economy, it is about taste and values.

Social Media

Flicker

I stopped posting here. I somewhat regret this as it did connect me to some sort of community of more serious visual artists, albeit with a focus on photography. I may return, though I would say that the role of this site has for me been largely replaced by Instagram. I have 959 followers. No change.

Blogger

The number of followers is the same. 84. But there are other people looking regularly whose monikers don't appear. I don't write things as much anymore. That's partly becuase working larger I produce less.

Instagram

The number of followers is 221, up from 136. 

Twitter 

There are 247 followers. It is a bit of a waste of time using this site, for my purposes , except maybe to announce exhibitions.

Saachi

There were a few sales through Saachi. These are always a bureaucratic challenge.

Facebook

Following advice, I created a page to represent me.

In the social media world such numbers are extremely low. I don't kid myself oh they are few but very dedicated, as their comments are not many. 


  

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Pines, Mocambique

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Pines, Mocambique, October, 2019

 oil on card, 30 x 23.5 cm

This painting is available on Saachi Art

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British trip - London, Green Park

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Green Park, London, Avenue, oil on card, 24 x 30 cm   SOLD

There is only one picture from London.

 But it is a good one- of Green Park- the simplest and most graceful park of central London`s parks.

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Forest in sunshine, Praia Moçambique

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Forest in sunshine, Praia Moçambique, June, oil on card, 29 x 24 cm - available

The next picture from here will be a double panel piece, as described in my previous post.

This painting is for sale with Saachi Art.

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Annual Review 2018; social media

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2018

The year often had an enervated quality. I spend a good deal of time waiting. I was not bold with planning. 

Travels

There were three trips in 2018: Peru, Uruguay and the USA.

Ayacucho, a view across a gully, 21.7 x 17.7 cm

Peru was a success: the weather was kind and the work was often good. I spent a considerable time exploring Lima, a rich and curious city. The people of Peru are modest and leave you alone. The scenery is interesting as is their bizarre culture and it's blissfully cheap. I started working on a  a larger scale, a tendency I pushed across the year.

Cabo Polonia, Uruguay, sea, oil on card, 21.7 x 27.7 cm Not for sale

In Uruguay, a pleasant country for which I feel considerable affection, my trip was ruined by sickness and I spent a week in bed in two hostels. 

This is the risk inherent in shorter journeys, that a mishap or a bout of sickness renders the whole trip worthless. Short trips might be considered a waste of time and money. No sooner have you unpacked then you are off again, and the cost of flights weighs more heavily when taken as per day cost. But such trips do break up the ennui induced by teaching...

Chicago, view down from an apartment on Madison Avenue

 oil on card, 23.2 x 20 cm unavailable

I did some nice pictures in the USA  but the trip was not enjoyable. 

There's a disagreeable atmosphere in the USA: a lack of true spontaneity in relations and sometimes boorishness. It doesn't take a great psychologist to see that there must be something profoundly wrong with a people if they feel the need to elect someone to tell them how great they are all the time. This combination of insecurity and boastfulness characterizes much in Chicago. There is a rarely quiet ease there, a considered pride. Big and brash is best. 

 Despite it's reputation for gracelessness, New York is better but it's often a tired or angry place. I didn't sense that people have much fun in either city.

The work

I worked with fair discipline and the pictures became steadily bigger.  I worked small on some still lives, but moved up to a roughly A4 size for landscapes. I attempted two different approaches.

In the first I tried to push a sort of "Chinese" style- economical and rapid and intimist. The second  style I refer to as "blocky"-  using large squarish marks to delineate simplified forms. The colours are usually bright, rarely tertiary: extrovert. This style works satisfactorily with buildings. There are various crossovers between the  two approaches.

In Brazil

Rua Luis Pasteur, Trindade, Florianopolis, looking down

 oil on card, 20.5 x 22.5 cm

I did a run of pictures in this neighborhood. I also explored architectural subjects. This went nicely and  I didn't go to the mountains at all nor visit other places in Brazil. There are reasons for this. So much of much of my work is concerned with architecture and there is very little architectural variety in Brazil. And what there is is often poor, and poorly integrated into nature.

The landscapes are often very inaccessible because of the way land is closed off by landowners. It is not always easy to find a trail or place you can walk to get views. The rights of way you get in the UK are unknown here.

Exhibitions

There as a show at BRDE. It went well. It sold well and functioned as a review of the last few years and some of the Peru work. There was also work on display in Scotland. There was supposed to be another show here but it never happened because the gallery was messing around. 

Social Media

Like many, I suspect, I am unhappy with social media. It simply does not seem to fulfill much of its promise. Like me, I once thought it would be a means to connect with like-minded people internationally, and while of course this does happen, too often it seems to be a forum for banality or unpleasantness..

Of course, as with all media, one can say what matters is how one uses it, and the user is to blame for the world they inhabit with a specific medium. However, each medium does seem to bring certain emphases, and this medium seems to emphasize transitoriness and celebrity-narcissist culture.

I also dislike how social media- usually Instagram or Whatsapp or Facebook- obtrude, their use determining how social situations develop, with silly set-up photo opportunities breaking the flow of conversations and justifying bossiness on the part of those taking pictures on their mobiles and imposing fake behaviors on the subjects. I dislike how the mediated, parched world of social media is now a substitute for real exchanges and experiences. I see people in galleries taking photos of each other in front of exhibits without even considering the exhibits themselves.

In contemporary art the use of social media is closely related to advertising, especially through the development of easily recognizable visual catchphrases and interjecting a chummy personal aspect.  One should take photos of ones home, situation work in progress and so forth, as well as one's finished work in such a way as to create an image, a brand, and henceforth a following.

Most artists can take a bit of this, and might even enjoy it. They understand that people wish to get to know a bit about them and where they are from and what they objectives are and that this helps in the understanding of their work. But many artists don't want themselves to be focus of their practice. They want their artwork and the things they are developing using art to be the focus. 

Well, all this is a roundabout way of describing my unease with using social media.

Flickr

I am annoyed with the site management for messing with the site. I consider not using more but as it now contains a readily accessible catalogue perhaps that would be unwise- though that catalogue is also available on Facebook. I have risen from 937  to 959 followers. 

Blogger

The number of followers has hardly grown. There are 85, up one. 

Facebook

The site is a good place for showing work and maintain contacts but I sense that it is being used less and that people are transferring to Instagram. I have a "page". It has 82 followers, a good hike up from last years's 3 and connected to my exhibition and some reluctant efforts I made.

Instagram

I started using this and found it rapid and easy. Now I think it it is just another invitation to waste time peering into a tiny screen. There is desolation in all this. I have 136 followers. 

Twitter

I went through a phase of posting stuff here but then gave up as there was so little interest it's not really a site designed for visual arts. There are 253 followers.

Saachi

There was one sale on this site. Sales usually necessitate endless phone calls with the an appalling courier service called DHL. 

Tumbler.

Occasionally I posted here but it opened no doors. There are 31 followers. 

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Thanks

Thanks to the BRDE, especially Prisclla Gobbi,  and Vikki Debden, who helped hang my show, buyers, my ever supportive parents and random strangers who made trips more agreeable.

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2019

The year will begin with Ecuador, a six week trip, then to the UK in July, or perhaps August, for at least three weeks. I want to do more work in Scotland and as ever there is the question of where to stay there that isn't cripplingly costly.

I read things from time to time about travelers who have such and such adventure when their four wheel drive loses a wheel or two in some ravine or other and they seem secretly pleased about this when it happens. But my mindset is essentially bourgeois, though I like the nicer youth hostels as they can be agreeable social spaces.

A pond at a ranch, oil on card, 15.5 x 17.5 cm

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Explorations: BRDE exhibition notes

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Explorations

Here are some notes about the works on display at the BRDE show: a sort of introduction and maybe also some memories about what happened along the while I was making these pictures.

About me.

I grew up in Aberdeen, a provincial city in north-east Scotland, notable for stern and taciturn and decent granite buildings, where the people are stern and taciturn and decent too. There are also two beautiful rivers which lead you into the glory of the Scottish countryside. I used to cycle along the Dee in the evenings to escape effects of the tedium of school and smoke cigarettes and try to feel free. I also used to paint pictures though I never thought to combine the two activities.

I haven't changed much except now I live in a messy and not very stern Latin American city and travel by car, a silver Celta called HAY. HAY is my best friend and I love her and we have been all the way down to Uruguay but mainly we wander round Santa Catarina especially the fabulous mountain towns where you get this divine sense of lostness among the Araucarias.

Travelling and painting

Travelling and painting is basically the best sort of travelling you can do. You get to use a kit which consists of a box containing your paints and brushes and which you then mount on tripod to function also as an easel. The possibilities contained within the kit are infinite and glorious and it is your fault solely and entirely if you return home after a longish trip with a pile of rubbish paintings as messing about with them later never works. That responsibility focusses the mind.

I paint using oils which take a few days to dry so I carry them around in cardboard containers which I make specially.

Then you walk around looking for stuff that strikes you and, so long as the sun is shining you are fairly likely to find something. Then you set to work.

Peru

The pictures here are a selection of those made from three trips in 2016, 2017 and 2018. Peru is a country that has very distinct regions and I spent most of most of my trips in the Andes- I avoided spending too long on the coastal cities because of the heat. I spent time in Ayacucho, Cajabamba, Cajamarca, Pacucha, Cusco and Tarma. There are also works from Lima, a place extraordinarily rich in architecture- albeit often dilapidated- Arquipa, Trujillo and Puno.

Peru is quite weird but rather good. The woman of Peru are finely dressed with excellent hats. Dentistry is rare. It`s cheap, quite pretty and the food is awful but the people leave you in peace even if the dogs don't. In fact, the Peuvians are mostly quite shy and courteous and sometimes were kind in bringing me things. Their children do not throw stones at you like Arab children nor attempt steal your stuff like the London brats. In Brazil people are mostly courteous too but not as shy, but still they don't bug you too much. If you have traveled and painted in Arab countries you will know that not being bugged is something to be very grateful for as Arabs harry you mercilessly.

All this matters because if you are painting you want to concentrate and if some idiot stands next to you repeating over and over -as one twerp did in Tijucas, what are you doing? - it is apt to damage your concentration.

Santa Catarina

As I live in Florianopolis the pictures here was based on explorations of the island and primarily the neighbouring regions. The good thing about Santa Catarina is that it has a huge variety of landscapes within a fairly small area and the locals aren`t as inclined to criminality as in other parts of Brazil. Also, it has a good span of different cultures, though architecturally it is quite barren. I get a bit fed up on the island and make regular trips usually to Urubici, Alfredo Wagner, Mafra and other mountain destinations. I did other trips down to Criciuma, to Orleons and way over to the west to Sao Miguel and places in between. I went to Anitapolis and to Araranguá also to Urussanga. It`s not a big state but it`s big enough to allow years and years of exploration.

The Pictures on display

The pictures are a selection to show the range of styles I worked in but it favours most the last Peruvian trip and the most recent Santa Catarina trips. The pictures are not painted slowly but only a few pictures survive. Most pictures I did are like burnt pancakes or horses you bet on and which nearly win but in fact lose, and thus engender a sort of disgust and you would rather not be reminded of them. Hence, they eventually find their way to the scrapheap. That is the way with plein air painting. It is at times agonizing but when it goes right it is very sweet though somehow it doesn't feel like it was because of you but because the hand of the Great Architect somehow pushed things your way for once.

So you only feel it`s you when you lose and never when you win. I don`t know why that is.

Five pictures

All the pictures are very much of the hour. They aren't classical at all. I don't lay much claim to objectivity, nor to harmony and balance or the legacy of Poussin though I know he is magnificent. I`m pretty much a product of the northern subjectivist schools especially van Gogh and Munch, though I love Bonnard and Corot too.

All the pictures are glazed because I wanted to protect them from dust. The oil surface picks up dust quite readily but the glazing does mean you lose some immediacy. I framed the pictures simply and fairly uniformly for the show, but certain pictures might be better re framed for certain contexts such as white walls.

Now, let`s look at five pictures...


1.

Sao Jose, looking across wasteland, oil on card, 13.5 x 11.5 cm

I liked the way the rise up flattened to road into a curve. I like the way the place was basically a dump, they were waging a  war against the environment-, the shamelessness of it all seemed worth recording. The world flattened out makes me think of Mantegna .

2.

The mountains near Cajabamba, oil on card, 17.2 x 15 cm

This is from a place called Cajabamba which is small and fairly lost. I liked the Cezanne-ness of working there, the way the soft air lent such distance to the perspective and how melancholy it all was. I`d like to go back, there are big pigs on the lanes though there is no decent coffee even in the town centre. Milk is not popular either. The hills around are very soft yet exaggerated and have therefore a oddly mysterious quality as if offering endless places for one to hide.

3.

Tijucas, kite flying, 16 x 18 cm   SOLD

Sometimes you just get this sense of people or places that have just been abandoned or forgotten here at times, Europeans just sort of dumped. Or left to their own devices.

4.

Guardo do Embau, with hills in the distance, oil on card, 18 x 22 cm

This painting is available on Saacchi Art

So much of my work has a troubled mind as its emotional genesis but here I wanted to make art which is explicitly about happiness about simplicity.. It`s an easy place to be happy in especially if all you want to do with your life is smoke pot and sunbathe.

5.

Ayacucho, a view of some lots, oil on card, 18 x 16.5 cm

This was painted from the just down from the big square. Ayacucho is a pretty fine painting city except for the dogs. Too many: I saw six them attack a schoolgirl and  this guy and I had to rescue her. She was traumatized and returned home weeping. Anyway, the painting has those rigid geometries that seem to be the norm in Peruvian towns, with the whole place a grid extending with deviations from the central square. But that, from a painters perspective can lend visual sterility, especially in flat place. But Ayacucho has some fine hills, and this is one shows the lots to the north of the town. This picture has echos of Bonnard, I think.

That's it.

When I began to make these small paintings - and indeed they were very small, about half the size of postcards - they were somewhat under the influence of Symbolist photography. They were consequently very tight and a little sad and gray, they failed to reflect the bright colors of sunny Brazil. I think I translated the cold tones of northern Europe with my contained palette and was unconsciously trying to impose nature on them here.

It took me about three years to get the work in order - at least in terms of the overall aesthetic method - by developing critical notions of what "good" or "bad" could mean as a reference to my work, and developing the technical fluency to achieve that goal.

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