In my practice I seek to explore what it is that gives a place its unique quality. We all seem to know when we are in a place, or when we leave a place but what is it that defines the boundaries? What is it that creates the feel of a place both in terms of our emotional reaction and the physical elements that exist within it, and how do these depend upon each other? How does a place differ from a location in space?
These concepts of Space and Place have long been the subject of enquiry of both philosophers and artists. The transition between the here and the there may mark the boundary between the known and the unknown, between the safe and the insecure and between the present and the future. Landscape art has traditionally sought to portray this by representing the view of the space surrounding a place, but maybe the principal boundary is that between the self and the outer, the point where person meets place and how that interaction is recorded by our senses, but also how that interaction changes both person and place. This change works on an individual level but also on a collective level. We live in a world that is constantly changing and that change is more and more being driven by the actions of the human race, by our personal actions and our collective actions.
I have been using an ontological approach to my work to investigate the physical elements that go to make up the fabric of a place, exploring the found landscapes that contain us or may be contained by us in the palm of a hand. Walking the landscape, allowing images and patterns to make themselves known to me has become a central part of my practice. There is a point of intersection between the geological timescale of the creation and movement of a single pebble and the brief moment of my being at the same point, and in this instant a work of art may be conceived. The creation of one object from another through the interpretation of marks using the medium of paint is the process by which part of my self becomes combined with part of the Place. That point of intersection also creates a location in Space defining the visible landscape that surrounds it. As Yi-Fu Tuan puts it:
“… if we think of space as that which allows movement, then place is pause; each pause in movement makes it possible for location to be transformed into place” (Tuan, 2011, p. 6)
Tuan, Y.-F., 2011. Space and place: the perspective of experience, 7. print. ed. Univ. of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, Minn.
After a lifetime working in science and technology, including working with some of the most respected scientists on the planet, I have now taken the time to pursue my interest in the arts and in painting in particular.
My work centres around a fascination with what makes a place seem unique, what defines it and how art can be used to capture this essence of place and how what we think of as a place relates to the space around it. Where are the boundaries? How does the surrounding landscape help to define the feelings that one has about a particular location? How closely can we ‘zoom in’ before the notion of place becomes meaningless, and are there any physical attributes that exist outside the mental picture that we all create when we think of a place?
This notion of place not only encompasses the spatial elements that define location but must also include a recognition of the dimension of time. The very material that builds a place is constantly changing at rates that vary between the moment of observation and the geological time of the earth itself. The intersection point of these time frames becomes a memory that builds with others to create what we think of as a place.
My paintings are therefore a representation of those elements that I feel best represent the feelings and memories that go to create my own experience of being in a place.
Upcoming exhibition:
17 – 23/5/2023 – SHINGLE joint exhibition of painting and photography with Linda Mayoux
Ballroom Arts, Aldeburgh, Suffolk, UK
Previous exhibitions:
2012 – 2017: Annual Art Exhibitions, Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge
2010: Exhibition in support of Wintercomfort for the Homeless, Six Bells, Cambridge
Projects:
2008 – 2020: Founded and ran Cambridge Life Artists Group (CLAG) to provide monthly life drawing sessions for local artists in and around Cambridge.
Education:
2011 – present BA (Hons) Painting, The Open College of the Arts
2008 – 2011 BA (Hons) Humanities and Art History, The Open University
1976 – 1979 BSc. (Hons) Electronic Engineering, The City University, London
Short courses:
2022 Joan Eardley: Land Sea and People, St Ives School of Painting.
2021 Abstracting Zennor in Autumn, St Ives School of Painting.
2021 The Thick and the Thin of it: Painting the Ocean, St Ives School of Painting.
2021 Simply Oils, Norfolk Painting School
2020 Sketch into Painting, St Ives School of Painting. (online)
2019 Artist’s Retreat Week, St Ives School of Painting.
2019 Contemporary Landscape, St Ives School of Painting.
2019 Abstracting the Figure in Paint, St Ives School of Painting.
After a career spent working in scientific and medical research an honours degree (first class) in humanities and art history with the Open University gave me an understanding of where my own thoughts, feelings and ideas fit in the landscape of the art world.
Having been trained in engineering drawing back in the days before computer aided design I understood the process of how three-dimensional objects can be represented on a two-dimensional picture plane and my path into art was initially through drawing. The representation of the human figure with its combination of structural requirements and living, breathing personality provided an ideal source of subject matter. Before long I had set up and was running monthly all-day life drawing sessions that attracted artists from not only the local Cambridge area but also further afield.
Attending several short courses at the St Ives School of Painting and the Norfolk Painting School has taught me the pleasures and pitfalls of painting and this is now my main medium of expression.
Aims:
Through my painting I seek to capture the essence of a place, what makes it the way it is and what makes it different to other places. Using an ontological approach I seek out the colours and textures of the substances that make up the thing that we know of as a place, whether it is the natural elements or the built environment, or indeed how those two aspects come together and interact.
I see my art as the art of place in relation to space and whereas traditional landscapes portray the view from a point looking at somewhere out there, I try to look at the place where I am. The focus thus moves from the horizon to the centre and in doing so reveals landscapes that exist on a different scale but are landscapes none the less.
My process starts with walking, not to anywhere or with a purpose in mind but just absorbing, allowing the environment to interact with me. Zen monks seek the state of no-mind and this part of the process feels like a meditation. At some point something will catch my eye, sometimes a stone or a shell or maybe a piece of rusty metal, but it will be an interaction and it is this moment at this place that I will then use to produce an artwork.
At the last tutorial we discussed how I might improve my work by allowing the paint to create the image rather than trying to force it. I had been working on glazing over a grisaille to try and recreate the patterns found within the thin layers of an oyster shell.
I decided to try and carry on developing this painting by putting more varied layers of glaze on to try and give it more depth.
Pathway acrylic on canvas (60 x 60 cm)
I think that this has improved the painting and has certainly knocked back the harshness of the white.
I then started a new painting again based on an oyster shell.
Source image:
This has a dynamic quality that evokes a feeling of a storm at sea.
Rather than creating a grisaille for this painting I used an acrylic extender medium with Golden Open acrylics to allow me to work wet-in-wet and blend and mix with the brush on the canvas. Layers of glaze were then applied over parts of the image to build up a sense of depth.
Shell Storm acrylic on canvas (60 x 60 cm)
Texture
Since coming back from Cornwall I had been thinking about how Stephanie Sandercock uses texture to develop her stone-based paintings and so I decided to take a small deviation over the Christmas period to experiment with her techniques.
She now uses a fine plaster used to create plaster mouldings and decorations on ceilings that she orders specially from a company in Scotland, but looking at her videos she started off by using tiling adhesive and so that is what I used as it is cheap and available from Homebase.
I prepared a 60 x 60 cm canvas with several coats of gesso to give a solid base before building up layers of the adhesive.
As a source image I used a photograph of the rocks on Porthmeor beach in St Ives:
Porthmeor Rocks acrylic and tile paste on canvas (60 x 60 cm)
The tile adhesive is quite difficult to manipulate and it’s not easy to get a sense of the texture from the photograph, but as an experiment it didn’t go too badly. However, I don’t really have enough time to get distracted from creating content for the exhibition, so I may come back to playing around with these ideas sometime in the future but not now.
Shingle
Discussions with Linda about our joint exhibition led me to consider the space on one of the walls and what I might use it for. Looking at the work of Helen Thomas and in particular her paintings of how plants and weeds can grow within the built environment got me thinking about the plants that grow on the shingle beach. These hardy plants manage to survive in very hostile conditions battered by the wind and sea and with no soil and are a vital part of the shingle coast in binding things together and preventing erosion.
I ordered a bulk supply of 30 x 30 cm canvases with the idea that I can create a matrix of 9 of these small paintings to fit the space and it would also provide a purchase opportunity for those whose pockets are not so deep.
Of course one problem with the plan is that I had to work out how to paint a shingle beach and not just single stones. In fact I have now developed a technique which I feel gives a reasonable result without driving me completely mad.
Winter Sun acrylic on canvas (30 x 30 cm)Frosty Morning acrylic on canvas (30 x 30 cm)Convolvulus acrylic on canvas (30 x 30 cm)Sea Kale acrylic on canvas (30 x 30 cm)Yellow Horned Poppy acrylic on canvas (30 x 30 cm)
These realist paintings are something of a departure from my other works, however in terms of the exhibition plans I feel that they will serve as a link between my paintings and Linda’s photography and reinforcing the contextual aspects of my work.
Booking the Courtyard Gallery at Ballroom Arts early enough has allowed time to consider how we might arrange the display and what would it be useful to change or add to improve the exhibition.
The exhibition will be a joint affair with my partner Linda Mayoux who will be exhibiting photographs of the Shingle Street area together with several books that combine her photography and poetry. This seems to be a perfect way that we can both benefit from providing context for each others work and creates a theme that is relevant for the exhibition space.
After having long discussions about how to approach the arrangements and curation we have decided that the overall title for the exhibition would be simply:
SHINGLE
We would then each have a sub-title relevant to our work and these will no doubt evolve nearer the time, but by keeping the title simple it allows for a wider range of work to be included and also keeps the exhibition relevant for Aldeburgh as well as Shingle Street.
In terms of publicity material we currently plan to produce a joint poster/flyer and have individual items as well. The gallery provides an A2 size poster case outside the gallery and two A2 size posters may be displayed in A boards near the entrance. I will need to remember that they require the posters and publicity material one month before the exhibition date as they issue press releases to “our social media, and as listings in a range of online arts and events sites which currently include Arts Council News, a-n news, Art Rabbit, Aldeburgh Gazette, Waveney & Blyth Arts website, Visit England website. As part of BallroomArts overall promotion, at our discretion, we may include details of shows in regional and national press.”
Having a dimensioned plan of the gallery is a great help in working out what space is available and together with photographs I have taken at other exhibitions at the site it is possible to get a reasonable idea of how things will look.
The plan at present is that in the main gallery room we will have one of the long walls each together with each side of the window in the end wall. This allows us to each decide on how much space we have and what this will mean for selecting the artworks.
One consideration that arose during discussions with my tutor was the idea that it is useful to have some smaller pieces especially when selling artworks as this will provide a wider range of possibilities for purchase. With this in mind and having been looking at the work of artists such as Helen Thomas, I have decided to create a series of smaller paintings (30 x 30 cm) that will still fit with the theme of ‘Shingle’ and are still relevant to the area including Aldeburgh.
The gallery also provides a range of plinths suitable for sculptures etc. and my plan is to use these to display the stones and shells that were used as the basis for my paintings giving a visual link between the physical and the abstract. We are also considering having a range of mounted prints of Linda’s work in a print rack and a selection of cards and/or postcards.
Throughout my studies I have sought to relate the art that I create to specific localities, endeavouring to not only capture the macro-scale view of the landscape but also the underlying fine detail that builds to create the essence of place.
In recent times I have been concentrating on the area of the Suffolk coast that stretches between Aldeburgh in the north down to Bawdsey in the south and in particular the small hamlet of Shingle Street. This small community of cottages sandwiched between salt marshes and sea holds a fascination that belies its size.
As artist who has recently been working on a similar project is the Yorkshire based painter Judith Tucker. She has been working with a small community on the North Lincolnshire coast known as the Humberstone Fitties, which like Shingle Street lies between salt marsh and the sea. Her series of paintings Night Fitties (2018 – 22) portray a group of cottages, shacks, old railway carriages and the like that together make up a community that looks very similar to Shingle Street.
Judith Tucker Why destroy a thing of beauty? 60 cm x 80 cm, oil on linen, 2019Judith Tucker. You knew what you had and how long you had it Oil on Canvas. 76cm x 101cm 2018
By choosing to depict night-time scenes Tucker has enhanced the feeling of seclusion of the cabins while at the same time the Union Jack flags help to create a sense of unity between the residents based around some idea of ‘Englishness’. The titles of her paintings are taken from snatches of conversations she has had with the local people.
She has also worked on the project with the poet Harriet Tarlo, a long time collaborator with Tucker, to create books and exhibitions related to the Fitties and the surrounding salt marshes.
Another Yorkshire based artist is Helen Thomas, an artist who likes to look into the close detail of a place. In particular her paintings depict the plants that colonise the edges and cracks of the built environment, the little reminders that nature will always reclaim what we build. She co-ordinated a major project that involved over 60 members of the public submitting images, photographs and paintings entitled ‘Dandelions and Double Yellows’ that looked at the urban plants that are more usually described as weeds and how they contribute to the biodiversity and colour of our built environment.
Helen Thomas Maybe Waldorf Way III (undated) Acrylic on paper (20 x 20 cm)Helen Thomas Groundsel, Cathedral Grounds (2021) Acrylic on paper (225 x 150 cm)
Thomas’s paintings got me thinking how difficult would it be to paint the plants that uniquely grow in the shingle along the coast as they part of the essence of Shingle Street. This has opened up a whole new line of thought in my work.
Using the overlooked, the ordinary, the parts of a place that do not attract attention as a subject for artworks is also a feature of the paintings of Narbi Price. This Newcastle based painter used the period of lockdown during the Covid crisis when travel was restricted to produce a series of paintings based on his local area that captured the strangeness of the time through the effect on the mundane.
Using photographs taken by his friends as source material he then developed photo-realist acrylic paintings of public benches that had been wrapped with tape to prevent people sitting on them. These images captured that period when the ordinary became the strange, but then after a while the new reality came to almost be the ordinary.
Narbi Price Untitled Bench Painting (Lockdown) 2021 Acrylic on panel (70 x 100 cm)Narbi Price Untitled Bench Painting (Lockdown) 3 2021 Acrylic on panel (70 x 100 cm)
Another artist who is inspired by the overlooked and the ordinary is Mandy Payne. Her work concentrates on the urban environment and in particular the sort of brutalist architecture exemplified by the Park Hill council estate in Sheffield. This work could seem a world away from the sort of environment that I have been studying, but it reflects her fascination with textures, surfaces and materiality and how these aspects create the sense of place.
Mandy Payne A Brief Window in Time Spray paint and oil on concrete (20 x 20 cm)Mandy Payne Remnants of a Welfare State Spray paint and oil on fibreglass reinforced concrete (90.5 x 41 cm)
I am interested in how she uses concrete as a support for her paintings, relating the subject matter to the process as I have in the past tried painting views of the Lake District on locally sourced slate.
An artist that I have long felt an affinity for (no pun intended) is Richard Long.
His practice involving solitary walks through the environment, recording what he sees, hears and feels, sometimes leaving small interventions, captures the sense of place in both physical and temporal dimensions. The process of walking from one point to another links the two locations creating new associations as well as highlighting differences. The encounters he records during the process create a map of intangibles that stand in contrast to the physical existence of the path walked.
My own work in Shingle Street involves walking the beach and in doing so I encounter the pebbles and shells that will form the basis for my paintings. Each one feels like a gift from the place challenging me to find the beauty that it holds.
Richard Long Walking in a Moving World (2001) Richard Long River of Riverstones (2022)
