Spring News
Recently I completed a piece called ‘Glare’. In essence Glare is a study in fabric, and the contrast of the texture of that fabric against a youthful face.
I think the urge to play with material and texture came from another painting I have in the house. Recently I bought a small piece at auction by New Zealand artist Garth Tapper. Tapper was at his best when he portrayed Kiwis involved in the every-day: pubs, the races, conversations, hopes, fears, laughs, loneliness, doubts. The piece I bought shows a barmaid in a red dress at the Occidental pub. The red dress dominates; bright and effortlessly rendered, in fact you’d say carelessly rendered, but beautifully textured. Instantly eye-catching.
Good art is contagious – it gives you ideas. I thought I’d tackle some fabric, as something of a study – in my own style of course. Not loose and urgent like Tapper – more like a muscular work-out. But I wanted that same sense of dominant material that pulls in the viewer’s eye and holds it there. Then as always, after you begin you never quite know where you’ll end up (which is half the fun) until it’s what you might bravely call finished.
Glare is the product of its own journey – it was never meant to look or feel like another picture. But it’s also the result of some quality artistic contagion.
Spring News
Recently I completed a piece called ‘Glare’. In essence Glare is a study in fabric, and the contrast of the texture of that fabric against a youthful face.
I think the urge to play with material and texture came from another painting I have in the house. Recently I bought a small piece at auction by New Zealand artist Garth Tapper. Tapper was at his best when he portrayed Kiwis involved in the every-day: pubs, the races, conversations, hopes, fears, laughs, loneliness, doubts. The piece I bought shows a barmaid in a red dress at the Occidental pub. The red dress dominates; bright and effortlessly rendered, in fact you’d say carelessly rendered, but beautifully textured. Instantly eye-catching.
Good art is contagious – it gives you ideas. I thought I’d tackle some fabric, as something of a study – in my own style of course. Not loose and urgent like Tapper – more like a muscular work-out. But I wanted that same sense of dominant material that pulls in the viewer’s eye and holds it there. Then as always, after you begin you never quite know where you’ll end up (which is half the fun) until it’s what you might bravely call finished.
Glare is the product of its own journey – it was never meant to look or feel like another picture. But it’s also the result of some quality artistic contagion.