A trip to Chile: Melipeuco, part 4, a road

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Melipeuco, a road, an itinerant, oil on card, 29 x 23.5 cm SOLD

One of the most successful of the trip- though I must say that I`m happy with the work overall. There`s a big van Gogh influence here, of course, and maybe also something of Gillies. 

It`s funny how sometimes pictures just come together, at other times the thing limps along. It`s quite unpredictable, even after years of working.

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Santo Antônio de Lisboa, general view

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Santo Antônio de Lisboa, general view, oil on card, 25 x 30 cm - available

This one is very Gillies.

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My Peruvian Adventure- Andahuaylas and Pacucha

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Andahuaylas is not the most charming town I ever went to. I was attacked by a pack of dogs (though not bitten) when I got there at 3 am? There are dogs all over the place in Peru and many are unpleasant. But the area around nearby Lake Pacucha is nice. You can have trout for lunch and stroll along the lakeside.

There are ruins at Sóndor, at the far end of the lake, which are not uninteresting and from where are excellent views. 

Pacucha, oil on card 18.2 x 16.5 cm - available

Pacucha, fields, oil on card, 22 x 17.2 cm

 This one, above, is the one of the best from this trip: it's energetic, crisp, with interesting colour combinations and it describes the sensation of distance effectively. It has a bit of Gillies in it.

Pacucho by the lake, oil on card, 152 x 18.4 cm  - available

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A view west, Antônio Carlos

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A view west, Antônio Carlos, oil on card, 14 x 18 cm  -unavailable

This is the first time I have been painting on the continent since my return from New York. Petrol prices have risen appreciably, discouraging me from travelling too far.

The picture is perhaps a little cramped. I have been pinching ideas about spacial organisation from William Gillies, an artist of extremely variable quality.

Extremely hot.

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A trip to the mountains, part 1

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 Hills, oil on card, 9.7 x 7 cm

Two horses in a field, oil on card, 10.1 x 7 cm - discarded

A first selection of paintings from my recent trip to the Catarinense mountains, which is an extremely beautiful place, very clean and unspoilt with smallholdings, orchards, little herds of cattle and chickens. The people I stayed with kept bees too.

I much prefer it there to Florianopolis where I live. The people of the mountains are German and East European in origin and are reflective, industrious and orderly. They people are friendly and courteous without indulging in that excess of hugging that characterises less European parts of Brasil and the coast.

The middle painting here shows something of the influence of William Gillies and Joan Eardley: this is partly in the thick textures and the strong colours but also in the compositional structure, where fairly simple profiles play against flat bands of colour.