Sunday 23 June 2013

New work: Runnymede Skylines, Runnymede Skies part 2

Here we have the second batch. Again they are all oil on 24"x24" box canvas.



Reading from top left they show the hedges and houses which line the Egham Bypass on a bright, cloudy day, the hill above the mead in persistent, gentle rain, the Runnymede on Thames hotel at dusk with London, the M25 and Heathrow sort of making a second sunset in the background and finally the Runnymede memorial itself at night. I racked my brain for so long working out how to treat the memorial. Mentally, it is the most important landmark on the mead; it is the only building dedicated to the Magna Carta. Physically however, it isn't much more than an umbrella so there was a real difficulty making it prominent in the landscape without cheating or straining the scheme; the fact that it is floodlit at night gave me a way to show it while staying honest. The fact that the burning colours of the lights could be made to match the afterglow of the sunset and can feed the imagination is a bonus.

I don't have much more to add at the moment, I've said a fair bit about the series both on the blog and my website. It has occurred to me that this is such a flexible format that, given how the mead is constantly changing from hour to hour and week to week, the series could go on forever. There are still types of weather missing, along with the the warehouse, the pleasure grounds, the restaurant, the river and so on. I might re-visit it in the autumn when the change gets dramatic again but for now I have enough other things to keep me busy.

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