OVERFLOW, mix media on linen, 2010.

PATHS SERIES 2010-2011-FOREWORD

This series of paintings is the result of a collection I have made over the years…Collection of visual memories. Although it was a direction I explored in previous works (especially the Deltas series in 2005. SeeAnd so it is, http://www.art-lac.com), it all came together after a trip to Australia in 2009.

These visual memories might be small, like the holes made by the waves eroding the seashore rocks. Big, like the view of a desert from a plane. Delicate, like the weeds undulating at the bottom of a river. Or impressive, like the mighty ocean meeting the red cliff. All intensely beautiful and poetic. Sometimes two memories overlap and a fragile swirl leaves its trace on a dense patch of colour.

This work is just a beginning as the collection of visual memories is an ongoing process. When it will happen is beyond my control. It is always an unexpected epiphany. Knowing which one will trigger a painting is unpredictable as well. Some disappear in my memory, some resurface and have to become colours and textures. In the Paths series, textured contrasts between different media is key (acrylic, oil paint, inks, sand and pure pigment) to try to convey the physical emotions linked to a specific scenery.

The latest paintings have been inspired by walks along the Thames path (Eyot, Eyot and birds, The river turn sand twists…) as the river meanders, the trees and the changing sky create an ever evolving scenery.

On the canvas I try to echo the rhythm of my steps through the sceneries I am part of for a moment. I found expressions of a similar experience in Barbara Heptworth and Gauguin writings.

“All my early memories are of forms and shapes and textures. Moving through and over the West Riding landscape with my father in his car, the hills were sculptures; the roads defined the forms. Above all, there was the sensation of moving physically over the contours of fullnesses and concavities, through hollows and over peaks – feeling, touching, seeing, through mind and hand and eye. This sensation has never left me. I, the sculptor, am the landscape. I am the form and I am the hollow, the thrust and the contour.”

* Barbara Hepworth, source of her quotes on sculpture art works and life “Barbara Hepworth, A Pictorial autobiography”, New York, Praeger Publishers, 1970, p. 280 .

 “I love Brittany. I find a certain wildness and primitiveness here. When my clogs resound on this granite soil, I hear the dull, matt, powerful tone I seek in my painting.” Paul Gauguin, letter to Émile Schuffenecker in 1888.

This work has been inspired by Land Art artists such as William Goldsworthy and Richard Long and by the Aboriginal Art.

This artwork comes with a Rippingham Art Certificate of Authenticity signed by the artist

Product Reference No: A-4329