Using photographs and memory I've been building up a collection of images in a sketchbook using various techniques - collage, acrylic transfer techniques - around my recent trip to Applecross. The photos evoke a rich sense of place and history. It's an unspoilt coastline, no industry to speak of apart from tourism on a small scale - every view is vast and open, huge skies and rugged mountains, endless coast with views as far as Harris and Lewis. I also had inside knowledge thanks to the expertise of our 'guide' Iain MacRae [my brother-in-law who was born there] whose colourful descriptions of local characters and the life they had, began to play upon my imagination. I plan to evolve the sketches into larger scale works using a variety of media but mostly painting I think and then of course find a venue to exhibit.
"Lifetide Series" - Exhibition Notes
Ideas are there for us to discover, if we can see them, if we know where to look.
1. Brick dust over everything. Building work at home 2010. Random marks on surface of kitchen appliances reminiscent of organic shapes, animals, birds.
2. Lunchtime doodle in a notebook, scribbling for the sake of it. The shapes are organic and grow on the page. Currently reading "Lifetide" by Lyall Watson. There is a quote on the beginning pages:
Sometimes ideas connect, breed and grow, transforming into something new.
3. & 4. I decided to use the unusual shapes in the dust as a starting point for a new series of‚ abstract‚ work and, wanting the shapes to be more sophisticated than my doodle, begin to sketch out lifeform shapes.
5: Collage is the next step to further realise colours and the composition of larger pieces - I have enough shapes for 12. I want rhythm and a connection between the shapes - "the one common flow".
6: In the final paintings (four so far) I reinterpret the colours of the collages.