
Liberating Landscapes
Imaginary Lockdown Landscapes At Kevis House Gallery, Petworth
Imaginary landscapes, a liberation from lockdown, a liberation from representational landscape.
Kevis House Gallery, Lombard Street Petworth, West Sussex, GU28 0AG.
2021 and 2022
During 2021 lockdown, due to changed circumstances, I had a lot less time in my studio. I couldn’t travel for inspiration. I started to do these small paintings from my imagination. Starting with random marks and then seeing in those marks a familiar landscape. Starting to suggest it with thin layers of oil. Working on them as a series, in rotation, one informing another. Leaving the details and the where to the viewers interpretation. Focusing on the emotional experience of being in a landscape. Intending to touch on the maybe, without it being spelt out, and yet imagined.
Making these paintings was my meditation during lockdown. An escape from the madness of the world this year. Finding a still place in the light, and the mood, air and weather. Seeing the landscape appear and disappear in the mist and rain where horizons are hazy. Wet Sunlight soft or fleeting where everything is in a process of being and becoming. These paintings have been a liberation for me, not only from lockdown but also from representational landscape. I feel it has been a positive step in my journey as a painter.