Bright Hills & High Places

This showing of new work at Willock and Sax Gallery in Banff Alberta, will run from October 31st through to November 8th. I will be in attendance at the reception on the 31st from 1:00- 3:00 PM.

“What an artist is trying to do for people is bring them closer to something, because of course art is about sharing. You wouldn't be an artist unless you wanted to share an experience, a thought.” David Hockney

Artist’s Statement Hanging on the walls of this gallery, my paintings, either precisely rendered or stylized, are a sharing of what I love: memories of beautiful times and places, and, because visual art is a language, a sharing of ideas and perspectives. On the off chance however, that you’re curious as to the ‘why?’ that lies behind what I do, here are some of the reasons:

Why Paint? I’m a painter today because of a book my mother brought home for me when I was home sick from kindergarten: Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans. i realized then, clearly, that what brought those wonderful watercolour and ink paintings into being could only have been magic. In my early teens I saw, and then returned many times to look at, the Pissarro painting Peupliers, temps gris, Éragny,. from those viewings I learned both that I wanted to paint, and that the depiction of of a place of natural beauty could itself be an object of beauty. In 1985, I attended a show at the British Museum: British Landscape Watercolours 1600-1860, and when I left the museum, all I wanted to do in life was paint watercolour landscapes. After producing and selling 33 large watercolours I turned to acrylics as a way of obtaining deeper, more saturated colours.

Why Landscape? When I was six our house was on the very edge of a small village with countryside and farms to the south and west. I was told, every day, to “go outside and play”. This struck me at the time, and still does today, as very, very good advice. I was also told (many times) by my mother and grandmother that I must NEVER EVER UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES go into the forest that lay across a field to the south. So, alone and curious, I walked across the field, passed through the sunlit glades on the edge of the wood and entered a cool, deep green cathedral. It was the most beautiful place I had ever seen in my life, and with that moment came the realization that this world held very very beautiful places. From that point on I have sought out, travelled through, and been physically moved by, places of great natural beauty: places where you can hear the trees speak and the stars sing. First by foot and by bicycle, and subsequently from the age of 16 on, by hiking, wilderness canoe tripping, backpacking, mountaineering and skiing.

Why Mountains? Mountains and waterways are the very best places to play. Beauty is there in sweeping vistas, in middle distances, and in close encounters, And so we made “… inroads into distant vales, and long Excursions far away among the hills, …on the cool green ground, Or in the woods, or near a river side, Or by some shady fountain, while soft airs Among the leaves were stirring, and the sun Unfelt, shone sweetly round us in our joy.” W. Wordsworth

‘Again I hear these waters…’

The images which have been turned into these paintings gave me the opportunity to compose with colour, form, line, pattern, and texture  -and to create landscapes of particular times and places, which will, I hope, afford the person viewing these pieces an opportunity to reconnect with their own similar experiences of the natural world.

Harold Town, writing about the landscape paintings of J.E.H. MacDonald commented that the work “gave a sense of the dynamic link between man and nature.” There is, in that link, the possibility of delight, pleasure and restoration.  I paint landscapes because I must, and because I love being outside, in nature -it gives and has given me joy, and joy should be shared.

Far better than I can express, the best, and most thoughtful analysis of the complex relationship between the experience of nature and the remembrance of that experience was written by William Wordsworth:

“For I have learned

To look on nature, not as in the hour

Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes

The still sad music of humanity,

Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power

To chasten and subdue.—And I have felt

A presence that disturbs me with the joy

Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime

Of something far more deeply interfused,

Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,

And the round ocean and the living air,

And the blue sky, and in the mind of man:

A motion and a spirit, that impels

All thinking things, all objects of all thought,

And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still

A lover of the meadows and the woods

And mountains; and of all that we behold

From this green earth; of all the mighty world

Of eye, and ear,—both what they half create,

And what perceive; well pleased to recognise

In nature and the language of the sense

The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,

The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul

Of all my moral being.”

Excerpted from Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, On Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour. July 13, 1798

Upcoming Exhibition

i am very pleased to announce that there will be an exhibition of my work at the Willock and Sax Gallery, in Banff Alberta, from June 11th through to June 26th, 2023, with a reception on the 17th

Further To The Point

…As an artist I believe, and I attempt to convey in my production of these paintings and drawings my belief that it is not the image or the subject that is important, rather it is the need to make and to share something with others that will reflect that initial powerful internal visual experience that is both important and essential.

 I love my eyes: they bring me joy. I love colour. I love, and need, both art and the practice of art. 

 Throughout my development as an artist I have been a pragmatist – in that the theories which underlay the work only came about through reflection upon the practice of art: action preceded thought. Further, my thoughts about visual art have been profoundly shaped by the way I think and have thought about music (which I have practiced as a performer, arranger, teacher and listener), because both disciplines derive from sensory experience, and both affect human beings in similar ways.

 … so, firstly, this whole thing about the “need to make and to share something with others that will reflect that initial powerful internal visual experience” defines and categorizes my art as visual. The work is, essentially, a distillation and transformation of what has been perceived into a material form (the painting). I have always been profoundly affected by what I see – to the point of being able to recall in detail images seen decades ago, and to remember the feelings and emotions created by those images.

 Secondly, I believe that what we perceive -whether visual, aural, tactile, or the scents and tastes we experience- creates firstly a physical reaction, and subsequently and occasionally an affective (emotional) state. Sometimes -and only sometimes- the intricacies of these perceptions can be understood intellectually. *

 My paintings have always been preceded by visual experiences that have caused a profound physical reaction, and that frequently have also triggered an affective response. It is as difficult for me to stay unmoved in the presence of the striking and beautiful as it is to stay unmoved when I listen to Ravel’sPavanne Pour Une Enfante Défunte, or, say, Bill Evan’s composition Blue in Green. 

 And lastly, I believe, like Kandinsky, that the elements of visual art (form and colour and the arrangement of the same) “constitute the elements of a language adequate to express emotion.”** 

Those elements are, of course, present in the initial visual experience, and in the completed painting – which is both a reflection of the initial experience and a new thing in and of itself. Just as music (Kandinsky’s first discipline) is a language entire of itself, so too is visual art. I also know, as Matisse has affirmed, that the act of seeing -vision- is a creative act.

 I believe that this process of perceiving, making and sharing is important. It is communication -a special and unique kind of communication - and one that can touch a human heart in a unique, positive and joyful way. 

 *In the case of visual sense data, I believe that intellectual analysis can only superficially make sense of why and how the infinite combinations of colour, line, form and mass affect human sensibilities. The evolution of our species demanded that we acted upon what we sensed rather than come to an immediate intellectual understanding of it. Our intellectual toolbox –which contains the tools of critical thinking, synthesis, analysis, problem-solving skills and others- turns out to be a few (5?) tools short when we try to understand how the data we perceive through our senses affects us, probably because the simple act of experiencing something obviates (in large part) the need to understand it. It is very difficult to comprehend how and why the elements of music (pitch, texture, timbre, dynamics and rhythm) can meld together through time in such a way as to fill my heart with joy, make me want to get up and dance…or weep.

 **Cited in Herbert Read’s excellent overview A concise history of Modern Painting.The question of how the elements of visual art can express emotion that is both tied to, and at the same time independent of, representational subjects is a topic I’ll address in a later post.