This is, for me, a larger piece at 76 x 76 cm ( 30 x 30″ ). This is because it will be going to Cape Town when the paint has dried and South Africans prefer larger artworks in their lovely, sunny, high ceilinged spacious homes. State Of The Art gallery is taking it (http://stateoftheart-gallery.com) and I look forward to seeing it hanging in their new permanent space at 50, Buitenkant. This gallery is first and foremost an online gallery, but has had gallery space in Shortmarket Street for the last couple of years. I look forward to seeing the new gallery opening in August. I intend to paint a series of works depicting local scenes with my trademark woman in the foreground somewhere. I am interested in street art and graffiti, and would like to preserve them in my paintings, as of course by their very nature, graffiti/street art regularly gets painted over. There is a wealth of talent in and around Cape Town, particularly in Woodstock and I can’t wait to get started. The Labia in this painting is South Africa’s oldest working cinema, much like the Curzon here in England in Clevedon, down the road…
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‘The Hare, North Street, Bristol’. Work in progress. 28/06/17
Another painting to drive me mad with patterns to paint, much as in ‘Bristol North Street Blues..Reds & Oranges’. I don’t think of these little problems when I set up a composition. Once I have seen what I want to paint, I tend to jump in and photograph it without heed of the consequences… My problem is that I am far too impatient to be a truly realistic figurative painter; I used to want to be, but now accept that it’s just not me. So with the panelled glass of the window of the pub, I am going to attempt a more impressionistic interpretation and let the eye of the viewer make up the rest. At the moment I feel the glass is too bright for the rest of the painting, so will paint a glaze over it next week when the paint is drier. The Hare is a lovely little pub on North Street where I live. It is a darker green than painted here, so I have used some artistic licence to liven it up a bit. I find I often use the Colour Wheel for deciding colours without realising it (Google for more info). Green…
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‘Rendezvous At The Labia’. Work in progress. 21/06/17
This is a larger work than usual for me, 80 x 80 cm (32 x 32″) and is one of a series I hope to be sending off to Cape Town gallery, State of The Art (http://stateoftheart-gallery.com) which is an online gallery with a permanent presence about to open at 50, Buitenkant in August, moving from Shortmarket Street. I have in mind to paint pictures using iconic Cape Town backgrounds, much as I am intending to do with Bristol at Great White Art gallery, (http://greatwhiteart.com). These backgrounds could be recognisable like the above, or involve street art and graffiti. The paintings will always have my trademark woman somewhere in the composition. The above work is so called, because this girl is sitting just outside the Labia cinema in Cape Town, South Africa’s oldest working cinema so I am told. People smile at the title, but said cinema was opened by Princess Labia in the 1940’s. I have been adding in much more colour than is in the original composition as I felt the painting was getting a bit sombre and I am in the mood for brighter colours, so will probably add in more next time when I get…
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