'Porthleven 29 - (Lowen Mor)' 70x50cms
The yellow gig, 'Lowen Mor', with its' black stripe against a beautiful blue becomes the palette for the painting, made during the recent April Porthleven course. It looks different, playful, spacious, graffiti marks/hieroglyphics describing structure and incident - I feel it has that desired and elusive balance between freedom and control. The painting follows the instruction given to the artists on the course to place a blue stripe on the side of one of their canvases- an idea designed to break the tyranny of the horizon and the automatic reflex of putting a blue sky at the top of the painting. The blue stripe can be sky, or sea, or a stripe or a vertical or a division of space or a colour to bounce off....
Many thanks to Dave Benbow, one of the artists on the course, who took these photos of the painting in progress and also some videos which we'll try and get uploaded soon giving further insights into my process and thinking.
The painting was actually started a couple of weeks ago during a talk and demonstration I gave to the Truro Art Society (below). It was a very enjoyable evening and I have fulfilled my promise to the society, that, although obscure at the beginning, the painting would become 'Porthleven 29'.
beginnings....