Echoes

Refreshing the mind

Occasionally, I like to get back to basics.

Now don’t, for a moment, think that just because I have painted using a simple palette of colour (in this case it’s black, white and gold), a series of graded lines or a single technique to apply them has made it any less considered than any other painting I have created. For that is not the case.

The whole point this painting exists is for me to cleanse the frantic, knotted mess that appears in my head sometimes. It happens and I am not ashamed to admit that.

This is me being as honest as I can ever be. Things can get way too serious in life; pressure of family, home, work and all manner of other things can manipulate and control us without us even knowing.

When you need to breath out for once I can choose to go climbing (something I have recently found out that I like). But this is a physical thing as well as a mental one.

The need to detox

When I need to retreat to the place I reserve for solace and reflection I paint like this. And I am so thankful that I can find the opportunity to do so once in a while because it’s paintings like these that, for me anyway, mean the most and have the greatest depth – even if that doesn’t initially come through as you look at it.

I like to strip away the chemicals and the fancy tools and simply enjoy the movement of paint as I shift it around the canvas. In Echoes I am doing that in a linear series of movement back and forth and grading as I go.

It is this process of grading, from dark to light, that provides me with the cleansing that my mind requires. It’s not a heavy or angry thing – it is simply a way to detangle and refresh. Think of it as having a massage for the brain.

And so, through the application of black, I can feed in the metallic gold and create these stunning dark blends that shimmer and radiate as the light moves around it. From there, we introduce silver and tiny whisps of grey which ultimately follows on to the white – the release point of the painting.