Sunday, March 1, 2015

Representing Home.

Some time ago I remember watching a short video featuring the prominent German artist Gerhard Richter. Richter continues to work in the realms of representation, abstraction and photo realism at tandem. He brings several bodies of work along all at once. Many times the images can be consequential and many times having no immediate relation.

Richter relates his abstract painting to 'going to work' or being 'like a gymnast' and equates his time spent creating figurative paintings to 'being on holidays' - a more relaxing endeavour! Nevertheless he states that all his time spent painting gives him a feeling of freedom, 'you do what you want' he said. This I can relate to!

Since returning home from Barcelona a couple of local landscapes presented themselves to me. Working on them I felt extra depth, an even greater enjoyment, and some understanding that my vocabulary in paint handling had further extended due to my time, seven weeks in all, depositing and pushing and pulling paint about on large format canvases in Barcelona.

The image below is entitled 'Karsk Pink'. The flattish dark olive green and black foreground is contrasted by the pinkish light cast across the rounded Karsk Burren hill. The clouds hang over offering a heavy line of neutral grey blue above the ever changing sky in my back garden. Today this hill was covered in a light blanket of snow which looked equally magical!

Hope you like it. -RH



















Karsk Pink Burren - oil on primed cotton panel - 24x30 cm

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