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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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