Hi after a busy winter!
This blog has suffered from the amount of work I'm doing, and also, because posting photos wasn't working all that well.
I've had an exhibition at Manos's cafe (Walton Street for those who know it) and am currently working on a series "Pilgrimage" in response to a lecture series. This is pushing my boundaries as I try to come up with original slants on the theme and I've moved into "mixed media" to try and create more spontaneous visual images of abstract ideas. Though there is also at least one oil painting.
For now, I'll try to post a photo of the first work - still "in progress" which is about the Walk to Compostella.
It doesn't look very impressive here but it's about the hardship of the long road, the sleeping in public, shared dormitories provided (200 people in bunks in one room!) and here they all are, the pilgrims, stacked up in their bunks, dreaming the legend of St James! The lower figures (in dark or silver tissue) represent the medieval pilgrims, the brighter ones further up are today's (in coloured card).
The media is paper on board, with muslin forming the road. The dream is painted in acrylic on black polyester muslin, with a layer more muslin over to increase the dream-like quality. Pilgrimage is about the walk, rather than the arrival, and the spiritual gain is very much in the "now" of the experience: or that is what the lecture seemed to say!
Have almost reached a point of "this can be left for now -" with my "Epiphany " painting, which takes Klimt's Mother & Child and places them as "Mary" protecting the Child from the intrusions of the "Magi" and their incomprehensible gifts. It is maybe a dream, a vision, a flashback.
