Selected for the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 17 June - 17 August 2025
TUES 21 JAN
I have decided to dedicate this painting to Stass Paraskos, who introduced me to the art of Matisse & Bonnard and the world of colour at Canterbury College of Art. Thank-you, Stass.
I've been in touch recently with great friends from art college - Paula Crabtree, Chris Salmon, Jon Isherwood - and have been reflecting on those days, my career, where it all came from and Stass undoubtably played a major part, alongside Tom Watt, of course. It was not only Stass's art and teaching that had such an influence on my painting but also the artists he invited to teach us: Patrick Heron, Terry Frost, Mali Morris, Geoff Rigden, Eileen Cooper, Anthony Caro, John Gibbons, Dennis Creffield, Vanessa Jackson etc. With such a stellar and diverse cast, it's no surprise my interest in painting remains on the borderline of abstraction and figuration. It's been a 40 year journey now, more. I may be under the radar as an artist, but I'm proud of what I've made. A photorealist when I entered college to this: a sensuous, free, bold, lyrical, intelligent, surprising painting, very much part of the lineage of colour, past and present coming together. One of my very best and my entry for the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition.
'Dialogues' could seamlessly be an alternative title: 'Dialogues' between colour, between abstraction and figuration, between line and shape, between left-side and right-side. Between the man-made and and the organic landscape, between geometry and gesture, between space and energy, between freedom and control...
'COLOURSCAPES' - Geometry & Gesture' with Jane Crane at the Crypt Gallery St. Ives 8-14 March 2025
MON 20 JAN
Is the painting now too busy? There is definately more incident and movement (Sunday), different journeys around the painting whereas Saturday is more languid, floaty, yet more rigid. The two versions are like the difference between the stiffness and straightness of Matisse and the contrasting curves of Madame Matisse in 'The Conversation', and having to choose between them! In Saturday, the focus seems to be the grouping of large rectangles in the centre, whereas, in Sunday, I enter the painting from the angled meeting of yellow and blue on the bottom edge, moving upwards. I think I'll put my brushes away.
Looking forward to showing these two beauties together in 'COLOURSCAPES, Geometry & Gesture', an exhibition with Jane Crane at the Crypt Gallery, St. Ives 8 -14 March. The paintings may be connected!
'Porthleven 77 (Kasbah)' 45x35cm & 'Porthleven 78 (For Stass...)' 142x116 cm 2025
SUN 19 JAN
I have a giddy feeling it might be done, after today's changes. The concept of 'balance' is the constant in this piece, from the original idea of the harbour balancing on the tip of the clocktower to colour balance and the balance between the left and right sides. How about a balance between abstraction and figuration? Today the yellow mark hangng from the line in the bottom right corner, became my maybe clocktower, a simple yet distinctive shape of striking yellow. The angled roof inspired a repetition on the left side with another roof implied with an open blue triangle. Pared-down imagery, subservient to the painting, but bringing in specifics of place and difference.
The whole painting is an 'image', the twin curves implying an entrace, portal, doorway with a space beyond, an impossible, magical painting space. Today, a new orange came in, flaring into the blue from the central axis, refining the shape of the harbour and bringing in a new curve which may be the pier in front of the Ship Inn. Now a balance between geometry and curves...
This is the essence of my work, the excitement of finding the tipping point where a piece of paint, a colour, a mark could be something in the world, but not so graphic that the image grabs the attention at the expense of the painting and its acute balances and tensions and resonances and emotions. A triangle implies a building or is simply a triangle or is a representation of the man-made landscape. Similarly, a curve or gestural mark can represent movement and the natural world and its forces...
There are steps everwhere in Porthleven, represented here by stepped shapes and line, painted consciously and subconsciously. My last question is whether the wiggley dark blue line at the bottom is too graphic a representation of water? (8). At the same time it does a great job for the painting, bringing in more curves and movement and creating a beautiful shape within a shape and an upward movement from the bottom edge. What is best for the painting?
(8)
7
SAT 18 JAN 3 p.m
Breakthrough. Dragging paint through paint below the yellow bar, creates an upward movement, a simplification and difference. More line, more drawing, a procession of curves (7). I took away the blue 'step' intrusion into the yellow at the bottom (7). A balance of yellow and blue, but also a balance of strength of shape and colour and delicacy of line and feathery brushwork. I have a vision of the lowest yellow mark, hanging from the line, becoming my clocktower, the yellow onto blue balancing the blue marks onto yellow diagonally opposite. Tomorrow.
6
SAT 18 JAN a.m.
Stacking shapes and colour to reach the top. Looking for my harbour: the long fisherman's pier has appeared as a maybe, the horizontal golden bar above the purple. Where is the new thing? The best thing is the colour.
Bringing in line/drawing for the first time. I keep seeing a paralell with my depictions of the verticality of Manhattan in my 'City of Glass' series. Here, at present, the harbour shape doesn't convince, I'm treading water. I have a problem with the squared-off blue entering the yellow at the bottom of the painting. This might work if I flooded the right side with yellow to the line. This 'step' is less of a problem, if I turn the canvas - it implies distance.
5
FRI 17 JAN
Still coming to terms with the large scale of the canvas - getting the paint down - but a good session. I can see many ways forward. I'm still looking at the proportions of yellow/warm to blue/cool. Love the purity of the new large vertical blue mark on the right-edge (5). The painting looks good all the other ways too - exciting!
4
3
FRI 10 JAN p.m.
Truer colour in daylight. Crude blues and yellows at the moment, apart from the bottom blue but the painting is lively and the canvas is covered! Let's not get fixated on the clocktower - yet. The harbour-shape is more inportant; shape, scale, colour. I have a vision of a shift from weighty midnight blue on the right to an etherial pale blue on the left. That will determine where the pivot of the clocktower will be.
It's an idea: tilted harbour balanced on the tip of the clocktower, a balance of yellow and blue...(2) Early days.
PS The soundtrack for this painting was Nina Simone and Radiohead's sublime 'In Rainbows', a present from my son, Ollie