New Work: Virginia Water

Two simple paintings which show how my language has evolved in recent months. They both show the ornamental woods at Virginia Water on the cusp between late summer and early autumn.

The one on the left I started last year when I was re-learning to paint and I gave it up in frustration because it was so heavy handed. I have had to resort to cheap tricks to get it up to an acceptable standard but the point is my capabilities have come on enough that I could turn it round. There are a couple of issues I couldn't resolve without fundamentally changing the nature of the painting so I left them; after all I saw the picture as a missed opportunity rather than something fundamentally ill-conceived. It is important to me because it was where my ongoing fascination with the interplay between transparent and opaque paint first came to light. Beyond this, my interests had not yet become clear.

The picture on the right is a response to it and uses the same techniques and almost the same palette. Those of you who have visited my website will realise it is not the first time I have made a variation on this composition. It takes the transparent/opaque games and pushes them far farther. In doing so it reveals a problem I have come across before: it is very difficult to photograph work which depends on this relationship. All opaque paint and the camera picks up colour relationships fine. All glazes and, again, fine. But half and half means I can have either one set of colours accurate or the other but not both and not their relationship. Its a frustration and I will find a cure, I just haven't yet. Other than opacity, the 2nd painting draws on my experiments with space. Beyond that there is nothing especially sophisticated; on the one hand being too complex would prevent the paintings from working together and on the other, as I have said before, its nice once in a while to simply bask in the wonders that are before you rather than being clever for the sake of it. I take particular satisfaction that the second, new painting is so much more boldly, loosely and confidently painted yet it also displays a far defter and more delicate touch. With these two paintings before me, rather than flawed reproductions, it is clear I have come a very long way in a short space of time. I can't help but wonder where I'll end up.