I call my style, if it can be called a style,
Contemporary Cave, because it is my belief that
man has forgotten something through the ages,
that something being a mystical, magical
connection with his land, his universe.
I try and
imagine, while I am sitting in my damp and badly lit
cow-shed of a studio a caveman daubing at the
wall of his cave from a mixture of goodness knows
what.
What was he thinking? Was he using
language? Did he have a God? What was his
inspiration?
Perhaps the answer to these questions
are within us, after all our genes, our DNA is
handed down to us from our caveman brothers.
Perhaps the answers to these questions and to this
lost knowledge is in that part of our brains we do
not use and in our imaginations.
What I am trying to do with my Art is to re-
establish that magical mystical connection with my
universe by using my experiences of living closer to
the land, to nature, to create abstract and symbolic
paintings by experimenting, not quite like the
caveman, but with modern and not so modern
paints and materials.< br/ >
The outcome of this is that I
create works that are experimental and a lot of the
effects are completely accidental.
What you get
from this is, in my opinion,is a uniquely, honest,
psychological creation that is imbued with that
magic and mystery that once was lost.
I use an
alchemy of oil paint- acrylic- water-white spirit-
gold and silver- varnishes-glass paint- artists
mediums various- the weather- heat guns- and
various other chemicals that come to hand. As you
can imagine this takes a long time, painting in
multiple layers takes ages to dry ergo I am not
prolific- phew! to be continued.
My wife and I have spent the last 2 years
renovating our 1800 Century cottage in the Dalveen Pass
and beginning to establish a wildlife garden out of
this 3 acre piece of bog land. We have planted
around 2000 trees and shrubs in the hope of
attracting the wildlife into our life. The work on the
ponds and the rest of the garden is ongoing and
hopefully never-ending and hopefully it is this
experience with the land and the area surrounding
us that will be my main influence in my artistic
endeavours, coupled with my wife Lindas amazing
faith and encouragement.
P S. The experience of life itself is the connection.
