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Please note that the colours on the images do not always truly represent those in the actual paintings and that some of the images have had to be manipulated as the photographs from which they were taken were somewhat distorted.
I was inspired by walks in the Cingue Terra to create a painting. Nothing however seemed to work until I saw a Lucien Freud picture of a nude which made me think of the Cingue Terra and inspired this painting which I feel in a small way bridges the landscape/portrait divide to create a singularity.
The Crack series of paintings, which follow, were inspired by Grayson Perry’s “Playing to the Gallery” more specifically the question “What counts as art?
This image is how I see the individual painting being displayed together.
Question 1: Is it in a gallery or an art context?
Question 2: Is it a boring version of something else?
Question3: Is it made by an artist?
Question 4: Is photography art? Perhaps the cynical answer is yes it can be if it is big and expensive enough!
Question 5: Is it sufficiently exclusive to be art?
Question 6: Is it of the moment and on trend, both critically and financially and/or considered worthy of a major exhibition? Otherwise known as the “hipster” or ”oligarchs’ wives test”.
Question 7: If someone saw it in a rubbish dump/skip/dustbin would they wonder why it had been dumped or simply not notice its presence?
Question 8: Can the contents of a website be considered art? To which I would add can computer generated images be art?
This painting was inspired by the sunrises over the hills above Penmaenmawr and Llanfairfechan. Again as is a frequent theme with my work it has been simplified or pared back to its fundamentals and the colours reimagined.
Several years ago there was an exhibition of textile art in the Canolfan as part of the Beaumaris Festival based on life in the sea. A number of plankton influenced pieces reminded me of building plans, especially the layout of Beaumaris Castle which inspired me to create this piece.