When on holiday in Switzerland a couple of years ago I wanted to capture my feelings of the landscape of the Swiss valley that I had been visiting repeatedly over almost the last 50 years. I did a number of sketches, one of which appears above. When I returned home I wanted to create some work that would evoke in the beholder my sense of wonder, exhilaration and awe at being enfolded in the mountain landscape through which we had been walking.
Helen Frankenthaler’s work, 'Mountains and Sea' was created very rapidly after she returned from a two-week holiday in Nova Scotia where she walked and drew every day. When I first saw her painting I was very powerfully affected by it. I wanted to play with her methods of pouring dilute oil paint on unprocessed canvas on the floor. The colours I chose represented elements of the landscape; the very dark blue green of the pine woods, the dark red brown of the weathered wood on the houses, the turquoise of the lakes and some patches of stone we found, the light blue of the skies and the dark yellow of some of crops in the field in the valleys. Here are some examples of the effects that I produced: |
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Each panel of this diptych is comprised of three separate layers of painted card suspended from metal rods protruding from the wall behind.
The layers behind are revealed through holes. This was an attempt to convey to the beholder the way in which the landscape in this alpine valley consists of a a series of layers, which are in a continual state of movement in relation to each other.
The layers behind are revealed through holes. This was an attempt to convey to the beholder the way in which the landscape in this alpine valley consists of a a series of layers, which are in a continual state of movement in relation to each other.