Breakthrough
“Orange and Red” – is my latest Featured Artist exhibition at Skylark Galleries 2 in Oxo Tower Wharf. On display is a collection of my textured canvases painted in bright, hot oranges and reds.
The collection includes canvases from 10 x 10 cm up to 75 x 100 cm and shares a common format of highly textured rounded shapes set against plain coloured backgrounds. What was the inspiration you may wonder? planets or stars,? Beaches? Islands? Cells magnified thousands of times? Or maybe it’s all of these.
In February 2016 I re-visited Zimbabwe after 24 years and rediscovered a powerful personal and artistic connection with the landscape, biology and geology of the Matobo National Park, south of Bulawayo.
Motobo National Park, Zimbabwe
There I was struck once more by the amazing texture, shape and colour of the granite rocks that cover the area. I also made a powerful realisation that this landscape had subconsciously informed many of my textured paintings.
At the time of my first visit to Matopos Zimbabwe, in 1988, I was a head teacher not a practicing artist, and these impressions and textures remained within me, emerging subliminally in my work several years later when I gave up full time teaching to turn to art.
I will give an illustrated talk about my inspirations from Zimbabwe at the gallery overlooking the Thames on Tuesday 12th April at 7pm
The exhibition continues until Sun 24th April 2016.
