Dots first came into my work when I moved from oil to acrylic back in the mid 1970s, with their first noticeable appearance in Summer Field. However they have become more prevalent and used as a structural element to my work more recently where they help with the unconscious flow or movement of the eye, almost suggesting a pathway for them to move over the painting (eg Celestial I).More…
Many years ago in the mid 1970s I got lost in a very dense part of Lyminge Forest in Kent for well over an hour. The sun was totally obscured by leaves and branches and of no help in giving me any sense of direction to find my way out. Little did I know that it would only be after completing ‘Lyminge Forest III’ in 1999 that I would realise how much the painting echoes that experience.More…
My figurative subject matter and the way it is depicted has evolved in spirals over the past 70+ years (ie the recurrence of both subject matter and visual language which appear and disappear over the years and then reappear) and groups, mainly inspired by late Goya, Picasso and Braque. Most of my figuration faded in the late 1960s when, at about the same time, I changed completely from using oil point to water-based acrylic.More…
I work in two London studios: my home/studio in Kensington and my Acme studio in Bethnal Green, where I have worked for over 30 years and which I mainly use to make larger works.
My paintings vary in scale from less than 20 cm to nearly 7 metres in length. Since the 1970s I have used acrylic, enjoying its characteristics and possibilities allowing me to variously stain the canvas and create collaged, textured surfaces. More…
Art historian, Brian Sewell’s personal exploration of the relationship between the Church of England and contemporary artists. Brian steps away from cathedrals and visits Christ Church in Kensington, London, to reveal how a particularly torturous painting of The Crucifixion by Royal Academician Anthony Whishaw ended up being on display in this small backwater church.
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A pivotal painting is the main studio space, high up on the wall facing the window, Coppice’ It is the last in a series of Tree paintings and depicts pinpoints of light in a dense coppice. Looking at it again it occurred to me that I could be looking down as well as ahead or up, as one does walking through a forest. This was the starting point of what was to become a series of Pond triptychs, in which, looking down on a water’s surface, there are also pinpricks of sparkly light with the suggestion of wind rippling it (eg Pond IV)More…
Landscape is one of the subjects I use to contain my visual explorations and inventions.
Like many painters, I used to work in the landscape itself, searching for some significant view that would act somehow as visual inspiration. However, my efforts could never match nature which proved to be too powerful and overwhelming, leaving me unconvinced and unable to create anything of interest.
My involvement with Spanish painting dated back to my first visit to Spain in 1951, but it was not until 1955-6, when I was living there on a Spanish government scholarship, that I was completely overwhelmed by Goya’s black paintings, especially those with the long horizontal format. This influenced my early figure paintings in the 60s, my landscape-related works of the 70s and 80s and several of my current paintings of interiors relating to Las Meninas.More…
The paintings in this exhibition represent work done during the last year and a half and consist of interiors and landscapes. They are an attempt to extract the essence a visual idea or experience and translate it into the language of painting.Forms are assimilated and recreated, then formalized and structured, so that the final work, although evocative of the original theme, stands as a pictorial statement valid in itself, valid without reference back to nature.More…
