This is a PDF catalogue of my work exhibited under the title All Nature at Gallery 35 Sheffield in November 2015.
Category: All Nature Faithfully
Transient
2015
Mixed media, and embedded objects on cement on canvas. 40cm sq
This is a passing, a transition from one state to the next. It is signified in material but concerns the ethereal and intangible. There is no legacy, only values lost forever.
Here and There
Mixed media and acrylic on canvas 40cm sq
No rudder or compass, the vessel floats free. It is everywhere and nowhere. It is mythical sailing in stories of fantastic voyages of the imagination. It is full of empty dreams. We keep vigil as it crosses our horizon.
Contained Assertions
Mixed media and acrylic on canvas 40cm sq
Truth is examined, honesty held up to scrutiny. Beauty, no longer safely in the eye of the beholder, is in peril. Added value fails to keep the balance sheet clean. The square is without compass.
Illusion of Inclusion
Mixed media and acrylic on canvas 40cm sq
There are barriers some are subtle others plain. A net is more than a barrier, it catches and holds. The frayed edges soften the impact; maybe they are time worn, as if by tradition. The net sorts and separates, being caught in the net is being caught out. Included yet excluded.
What we say if we listen.
Mixed media on canvas 20″ sq
A seashell and other objects are embedded into and onto the canvas. The shell although like an ear is as much sending as catching a message in the form of a cloud whisper. What might be a landscape or seascape is turned to form another plane or reality.
Night Leaves
Mixed media including bitumen and cement with assemblage on canvas
2014 8″x 8″ x 2″
A continuation from the ‘bare roots’ series, this piece relies more on composition and texture. The natural colour of the cement ground is more obvious.
In Night Leaves there is also a more deliberate attempt to create a sense of allegory.
Something of the Night
Mixed media including bitumen and assemblage on canvas.
2014 8″ x 8″x 1″
This contiuation from the Grass Roots series aims at a darker allegorical meaning.
Bare Roots and Other Things Unearthed
Bare Roots I
A series of three small (8″sq) paintings using mixed media and cement on canvas.
Bare Roots II
Bare Roots III
Bare Roots; the origins revealed or left by paring to the essentials. Again this concerns beginnings. A continuation from the ‘grass roots’ series, these pieces rely more on composition and texture and surface. The natural colour of the cement ground is more obvious than in many of the other pieces.
Grass Roots
A series of four small (8″sq) paintings using mixed media and cement on canvas.
Grass Roots: the origin or basis of something; the basic or primary concept, rule, part, or the like. Again this concerns beginnings. Each piece started with a fragment of grass root from local moorland. These pieces also use collaged fragments of imagery created through digital manipulation of my landscape photography.
Grass Roots I
Grass Roots II
Grass Roots III
Grass Roots IV
Infinity Quartet
“If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro’ narrow chinks of his cavern.”
― William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
“The unexplainable thing in nature that makes me feel the world is big fat beyond my understanding – to understand maybe by trying to put it into form. To find the feeling of infinity on the horizon line or just over the next hill.”
― Georgia O’Keeffe, Some Memories of Drawings
4 pieces on canvas 20″ x 20″ cement, acrylic paint, acrylic medium, PVA, mixed media, collage, embedded materials. 2014
The Fall
Mixed Media and Acrylic on cement on canvas.
20″ x 20″
2014
Primordium
Acrylic medium and paint, mixed media on cement on canvas.
20″ x 20″
Once Upon A Time
Acrylic and acrylic medium, cement, mixed media on canvas.
20″ x 20″
2014
For Ever and Ever
Acrylic medium, acrylic paint, cement, mixed media on canvas 20″ x 20″ 2014
Root
Preparation drawing.
By What Feint
Nearing completion, very difficult to photograph without reflection.
With gloss acrylic and gold paper collage
Acrylic paint on canvas with mixed media 8″ sq x 1″ deep.
All Nature Faithfully
Turning Over A New Leaf
A return to digital manipulation. This is based on a mono print from a leaf scanned and digitally layered. The notion of the infinite in Nature continues as a theme. It is interesting how the tree motif emerges from the leaf veins almost of its own volition.
I have always loved this Nietzsche quote as phrased by Gombrich in “The Story of Art”
“All nature faithfully”–But by what feint
Can Nature be subdued to (the artist’s) constraint?
Her smallest fragment is still infinite!
And so he paints but what he likes in it.
What does he like? He likes, what he can paint!
A new tag for what may become a series of visual thoughts about bounding the unboundable.
