Strange Victory, Strange Defeat...

'Artists are seekers. Some search for insights into cultural habits and circumstances; often they end up finding something else — a deeper sense of their own social role. Other artists concentrate on faithfully drawing and painting the objects around them. They’re liable to eventually arrive at a more elemental and solitary realization: what it means to exist in light and space….’

- John Goodrich reviewing ‘Peace Tree’, a retrospective of the works of Jason Harvey (1991-1982). 

In the studio…

I’m leaning too much into Matisse and Diebenkorn for quick solutions….the Red Studio, the Pink Studio…the Ocean Park paintings…trying to explore colour by lifting someone’s else’s explorations into colour. We all do it sometimes but that’s a lame excuse…Larry River’s paintings would have been a better approach to the surrounding space. I tried that in my sketchbook. There you go again…someone else’s shoes. 

Strange Victory…

What about just making a new painting based on a section of the bigger one? Like Suzanne Philips? I like her paintings. I like the simplification and the limited palette. And what about Jonas Wood’s graphic paintings of pot plants and those amazing interiors of his own home? I love those. Maybe I can do something like that? 

Strange Defeat…

…everything looks so mannered. Trying too hard. I can use all this grey on my palette though on the big painting. Jonas Wood uses a lot of neutral grey…

I need to paint the pot with the smiley face again today. It looks a bit like me when I was about eight years old…I don’t fancy it. Why don’t I just bring the pot out of its place at home and take it my studio to paint directly from it…I enjoy this way of painting still lives more, and I’m better at if. That’s the best idea I’ve had so far. It feels like a weight has been lifted…

Strange Victory…

That’s better. Here’s another canvas. I’m going to just paint the pot on its own and paint directly from life…Keep it simple. I feel more like David Hockney. He wears his influences on his sleeve but somehow comes out making paintings that can only be David Hockney’s…

I like the pot, but the depiction of the table looks a bit pants…I was looking at Susan Lichtman’s paintings. You can’t really tell. Her ones are good…!

Strange Defeat…

I have got rid of the background and the table line…. it’s ok, but it’s not finished.  I like the pot at least. I’ll come back to it…I get the other painting back on the easel and this time I bring all the pots and other objects to the studio and paint the rest of it directly from observation. This is much better and much more fun (painting should be enjoyable, at least for some of the time…). I have kicked out Matisse, Diebenkorn, Wood, Philips, Lichtman and everyone else out the door (except perhaps David Hockney, who hangs around for a fag..). It looks more like a painting of mine at least, but it is still not the best. I think it’s finished for now. It is some sort of record of this experience. I will live with it and see but I’m going to throw dirty turps over the big first painting, wipe it off and rub it down and think of something else….

Strange Victory, Strange Defeat…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVppNcUI1tM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4phNlof05lA

https://paintingperceptions.com/elizabeth-geiger/

https://www.booksteinprojects.com/artists/susannah-phillips

https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/5344

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JO57L-InSdo

Just For A Moment....

'Driver's Story', currently on show in 'Habitat', a mixed group exhibition at Cupola Contemporary Art, Sheffield

I’ve had several busy weeks where the year now seems to be gathering some sort of momentum. 

Last week I delivered 2 paintings, ‘Driver’s Story’ and ‘A Home in England’ to Sheffield’s Cupola Contemporary Art Gallery for a mixed group exhibition, ‘Habitat’. I also was pleased to hear that I had had a painting, ‘Thinking of a Colour’, selected for the Coventry Open 2025 at the Herbert Art Gallery and Museum. This will be my third exhibition this year already. I’ve also hosted a couple of studio visits recently, where I have invited different artists and artistic contacts round to my studio to discuss my work. That has been enjoyable, and I am really grateful to Sam Weeks artist and John Sewell and Dean Melbourne from Cosimo Art Gallery for giving up their time for me. Listening to their views and insights on my work has felt like a real privilege and it is a very generous act. 

I have often thought ‘Driver’s Story’ is a particularly good painting, if I say so myself(!), but I never feel it has received much interest whenever I have shared it on the usual social channels or for the first time in an exhibition last year, so I’m really pleased to have it selected for the exhibition at Cupola. I think it looks great in some from the exhibition which the gallery sent me. It’s exciting to see it out in the world beyond my studio.

'Plushies', oil on canvas, 85 x 100cms...a new painting that attempts to create a sense of the overwhelming anxiety I often feel as a parent of two......

My studio work, however, seems to be developing more slowly. I am working unusually slowly now and feeling my way painting by painting, not sure what I am going to do from one piece to the next. My interests have widened out from the landscapes, and I am pursuing different strands of work at the same time. These include portraits, landscapes and still lives. One of my pet dogs, Maple, has also found her way into the work too as I slowly develop a series of paintings that turns their attention more to my home life as I reflect on my relationships with the things closer and more personal to me through the paintings

"Maple on the Settee', oil on canvas, 60 x 60cms

I completed a portrait of my son, in a week when he was feeling particularly vulnerable that concerned us all at home. I felt compelled to capture an image of him on my camera phone as I looked in on him as I went to bed, after feeling very moved by the sight of him under the covers watching his TV in bed looking very small and young again (he is now 16). This painting seems to resonate with a lot with those who have seen it, particularly those who are parents.  Dean Melbourne, artist and arts advisor was very moved by it on his studio visit. I also took it to an ‘artwork appraisal’ at the RBSA where it was also received well, and I felt the more nuanced formal decisions I carefully think about were seen by the artists appraising the work that day. Both these experiences have been some sort of validation of this painting, so I think I might try and look for exhibition opportunities to put this piece forward to. 

'Under The Covers', oil on canvas, 60 x 80cms

I find myself on a real journey lately where I feel rather unsure as to where I’m going. Sometimes I feel like I should just determine a more defined and narrower theme for a series of works and go for that, cutting out all these other interests that fight for my attention, you can only do so much after all, and maybe soon I will, but at the moment I’m just trying to go with the flow…

'Highly Commended' at the Coventry Open 2025

After writing this statement above yesterday ( I tend to write the blog posts over a few days),  I reflected that perhaps the paintings about my immediate surroundings at home are the project I’m looking for and I just need to commit to that for a few months. I also attended the private view of the Coventry Open and my painting ‘Thinking of a Colour’ was selected as Highly Commended. I was quite shocked but also taken aback by feeling quite emotional. I persist so hard with my painting and it felt that after what has been a really difficult period in my life my painting felt ‘seen’…I’m not very good at ever celebrating my own work but sometimes, just for a minute, I need to remind myself I maybe should…

Hunters in the Snow...

oil on canvas, 50 x 60cms, 2025

It’s been a busy and productive January in the studio. I started the year wondering where I might go with my work but ended up painting a flurry of landscape paintings in a couple of weeks that I really enjoyed doing. I have less and less of a plan for my work in recent years and just try and follow what happens in the studio. The work is based on observations of the world around me and that means I tend to lie in wait for something to come along, a thread to pick up and pull, remaining alert and open to chance, or when it comes to the landscape, I go out hunting with my camera and sketchbook. 

oil on canvas, 50 x 60cms, 2025

At the beginning of the month, we had a blanket of snow fall across the country which pulled me out from the warmth of the house and out into the local common, canal and woodlands that I often frequent on my dog walks to enjoy taking several photographs. I have done several winter snowscapes now, which began in the winter lockdown of 2021, and I like the way the landscape becomes cleansed and simplified, and the colour reduced, and how quiet everything becomes. I like observing the skeleton of the landscape revealed in winter, particularly the bones of the dark trees, partially and temporarily hidden under the snow. I photographed some interesting fallen trees which reminded me of some of Graham Sutherland’s depictions of trees and plant forms in the Welsh landscape, but for now I have painted these paintings based on the paths I follow on my walk…

oil on canvas, 50 x 60cms, 2025

Into 2025....Friends Reunited...

'Ice Cream Wars' delivered to the RBSA Gallery...

I start 2025 with one of my paintings, ‘Ice Cream Wars’ being selected for the RBSA Friends exhibition at the RBSA Gallery in Birmingham in January. The Royal Birmingham Society of Artists (RBSA) is an artist-led charity which supports artists and promotes engagement with the visual arts through a range of exhibitions, events and workshops. The RBSA runs an exhibition venue, the RBSA Gallery, in Birmingham’s historic Jewellery Quarter, a short walk from the city centre. The Art Society has a long, prestigious history, having been established 200 years ago and I understand it’s one of the oldest art societies in the country. 

'Ice Cream Wars', oil on canvas, 120 x 150cms, 2022

I was encouraged to become a member of the RBSA Friends by an RBSA member I know, and as a member you have access to being able to apply for free to exhibitions at the (very nice) gallery, and also other events, talks, private views and workshops. I was a bit hesitant if I’m honest as the RBSA can have a reputation for being very traditional and a bit stuffy, but I have had work selected for 2 exhibitions there in the last two years and have really enjoyed the experience. The other work on show has been at times incredibly good, and the private views are very warm and friendly and full of enthusiasts, compared to the countless too cool for school events in other parts of the city, and the gallery is a great space to show work. I must admit that I’m also becoming aware of my age a bit in terms of how I am perceived as an artist by others, not with how I make work: the age and experience seems a bonus, but that opportunities to exhibit are thin on the ground for my age and demographic (white, middle-aged, and more!, male artist painting landscapes), that the Friends group could be a new opportunity to have access to good quality exhibitions but also fresh eyes and perspectives on my paintings, and a chance to extend my network of rather slim range of artist contacts. So, let’s see how it goes….

It's great to have 'Ice Cream Wars' selected though. It's a big piece and I always thought this was a strong painting but I've only had chance to exhibit it once, so exhibiting it in the Friends exhibition, with a much bigger audience will be exciting to see how it is received....exciting slash terrifying that is...