Riverbank, blocks

Riverbank, blocks, oil on card, 7 x 8.2 cm

This is the last picture I shall paint from here for a while.

Morning,11am, Riverbank

Morning, 11am, Riverbank, oil on card, 7.9 x 10 cm

Painted among the reeds. I will not do more from this location for a while as I fear repetition, except for one last wider view of the roadbridge and the creek.

In the morning herons gather here in their beautiful white plumage, breakfasting in low tide.

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It is lovely to be working in this way, in the "footsteps of giants"; muddy common sense painters like Constable, Ruisdael. Much is made of the importance of artists as radicals, innovators and revolutionaries. But few artists truly posess the nous for originality, so it would surely be better if more emphasis were placed on artists' abilities to follow and celebrate the traditions they are party to.

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I came across a blanket among the grasses there, lying on a pile of pages from a promotional fashion catalogue, the faces and bodies of models in mannered poses. To think of those images forming a bed there: something strange and tragic about it: I had broken into another man's privacy.

Riverbank, reflections; Florianopolis; cliche

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Riverbank, reflections, oil on card, 10 x 9 cm - available

A beautiful day: the tide doesn't enter here 'till later, so no fishermen today. I stood on the bridge in the sunshine.

At weekends, Florianopolis doesn't get moving until midday at earliest: even a relatively late riser such as I can wander about in relative tranquility in the morning. It's an odd city, provincial in mood, slow moving, with a limited cultural infrastructure.

It is as if it hasn't awoken to the fact that its population has risen now to over 400, 000. At weekends the centre feels very dead, the nocturnal sectors of the population drive in search of fun to Lagoa, or to large, bland shopping centres.

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This subject of today's picture is not new, but is it a cliche? Or is it simply the sort of scene that will always appeal to landscapists? To me, a cliche is a catchphrase: it has an glib cleverness about it: I don't think the mere fact of a subject being unoriginal makes it a cliche.

It's often better, in any case not to worry about things being cliches or not, at least until after the picture has been made. That is because, I think, as artists we sometimes have to work ideas through our systems, however uncomfortable that makes us feel, or how grotesque the results: we have follow them through to their conclusions, good or bad.

Ergo, we should try to hold off criticising our work until some time after it has been made, or we will never succeed in working our more dubious ideas out of ourselves, and will fail also to liberate the better ones.

Sapling on a riverbank; David Sylvian; tourist pictures; getting into my stride

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Sapling on a riverbank, oil on card, 7 x 9.4 cm  - available

 

 

 

The creek cuts through from bridge to bridge at the back of Itacorubi, and I've found a little path, much overgrown. I went along it, passing a couple of fishermen. 

It`s a great place to work- tranquil. I might think of myself there working as John Crome, great Norfolk painter of discreet places. A thread connects all the artwork I've done, regardless of style or medium: the revealing of secrets. Finding and depicting obscure or hidden parts of Florianopolis is a way of revealing secrets, showing an intimate and private relationship with a hidden or un-noticed place. 

This is a theme that connects many artists I love- photographers such as Atget and painters such as Utrillo or Morandi. I first became aware of my attraction to this theme through music, specifically songs by John Foxx, or David Sylvian: 

  Once again I'm hiding in backwaters Running this way and that Trying so very hard to please (beware of hidden snares) Rushing to bite the hand that feeds me Running this way and that (there are always other possibilities) This way and that 

Backwaters, David Sylvian, 1984 

 Given the themes of secretness, hidden-ness and exploration so animate my work, I wonder if the idea of making the London Tourist paintings, and, in November, the Italian and Maltese ones is such a good idea? 

Such pictures of monuments and given views are surely against my every instinct. But perhaps it is good to oppose ones known instincts from time to time. 

 

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Above are some pieces of card being prepared for paintings. I'm very happy with this small format, which suits my working speed and also keys nicely into the idea of "revealing secrets", as outlined above. It took me a couple of years, however, of fairly steady work to get into my stride- to locate myself in the aesthetic- the first little pictures were generally underworked and to my eyes now, sloppily crafted, sometimes painted on badly primed supports. 

As I have worked steadily, I've managed to develop critical axioms, and raise the general level of my work. I'd say of every five pictures (a usual week), one is an outright failure, two are mediocre, and two good. Usually in twenty there is one which I love.

 But I have good patches and bad: now is a good one, though I scarely dare admit that for fear of jinxing it. 

 

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Tree by a riverbank

Tree by a riverbank, oil on card, 7.7 x 5.8 cm - available

The river, or creek as I call it sometimes, cuts through the back of Itacorubi and Corrego Grande. It's only possible to walk along some bits of it.

Creek with a horse

Creek with a horse, oil on card, 7 x 12.5 cm  unavailable

You can, hopefully, make out the horse to the middle right of the picture, grazing peacefully while in the distance new blocks are being constructed.

Forest, Lagoa

Forest, Lagoa, oil on card, 16 x 8.7 cm

Another wide format piece: there's a bit of Bonnard in here, I guess.