Introducing three new pieces for 2022, Look Up, Karma and The Fence, each with strong undercurrents of environmental, political and existential concerns underpinning the elemental abstract landscape, where earth, water, air, rock, sky and fire coexist, harmonise and collide in varying degrees. Each piece is 100cmx100cm, and is acrylic paint on canvas.
Look Up
Look Up is a painting about our environment, conveying hope, positivity and optimism, and was the first piece I painted in January 2022. This landscape conjures up an almost magical environment, one of purity and light, suggesting an ‘other worldliness’, trancelike and meditative. An imaginary place to breathe clean air, live in harmony and good health.
The title, Look Up, can be read in several ways, but is intended to remind the viewer to live in the moment, be involved in the world, to open one’s eyes and look beyond our screens.
Karma
Karma was painted in early 2022. The context for this piece is borrowed from a back drop that begins with the complete joy I take from the natural world, it’s colours, textures, light and life, starkly contrasted to environmental concerns, climate change, extreme meteorological conditions, political instability in the west, and philosophical ideologies.
There is an undercurrent of powerful, but controlled energy running through this painting, suggesting a fine balance between suppression and expression. The square format, coupled with sweeping, expressive brushstrokes and strong dynamic directional line, helps to provide a means to send the eye around the painting and back to the ‘start’, wherever that may be (for me the focal point is in the bottom left third, and then my eye is finally drawn, and rests, on the soft pink area in the central area). The palette is very enhanced colour, full of light and purity, with no earthiness of the ‘ground’, more ‘about’ atmosphere, air, water, rock and mineral. The cadmium orange is laval and hot, the blues hues calm and tranquil, brought together with contrasting values, colour harmonies and wet/dry painting techniques.
The title, Karma, is a gentle sounding name, suggesting natural forces, balance, and the idea that actions, happenings and changes have consequences, for good or ill. There is a transparent wave of thin cadmium orange on the right, a symbolic ‘tsunami’, a motif of changes, triggers and unstoppable forces.
The Fence
The Fence is a subtle play of ideas of division, splits, disunity, about physical and philosophical borders, barriers and perimeters which divide us. It was painted in early 2022, at a time of great global uncertainty, fears over the future of the planet due to climate change, potential and catastrophic war, and of course, the pandemic, at the forefront of our thoughts. The Fence is meant to suggest a temporary division, a place to sit and ponder, work out, consider, and take time to conclude.
The canvas is split into 2 equal parts, unconventional and perhaps slightly too balanced. However, the opposing sides of the painting are in complete harmony with one another, flowing freely between left and right, top and bottom. Essentially, both sides are very similar, have much in common visually, but are different from one another. However, there is a deep sense of unity and harmony in the composition, of balance, peace and co-operation. The palette is organic but light, with pale gold greens and subtle pink hues, suggesting growth and life, connections to nature and of being rooted or grounded to the earth. A fine balance has been reached, and it is a peaceful outcome.