Light and the Cinema

Light and the Cinema, 2023, oil on canvas, 61.25 x 76.25 cm

'Light is the principal personage of a picture', This quote by Manet has such significance because for me, light and air are mostly what turns painting techniques and subject matter into art. 

My current work has light as its subject matter. Although light needs to be there to bring a picture to life, many paintings also emphasise a story as well. But my aim is to paint something that needs no words/story since light has a universal meaning and is enough on its own to be the subject matter of the picture. The important thing to be aware of also is that light comes from the artist and not the sun, the moon, colours or the electricity grid. As Matisse put it, 'Colour helps to express light, not the physical phenomenon, but the only light that truly exists, what's in the artist's brain'.

The cinema is projected light, which makes it a perfect motif for a picture emphasising light. The image on the screen in the above painting is not that important and it doesn't really contribute to the subject matter but light brings it to the screen.

There is a quote by Wim Wenders that says so much - 

'The only subject is the light as an existential condition of man. There's no need to paint a person, light suffices, it produces us'.

Reflections, Silver and Green.

Reflections, Silver and Green, 2023, oil on linen, 71.5 x 71.5 cm.

Reflections on water are, for me, one of the trickiest things to paint. They are constantly changing so the general rhythms and colours on the water are the best way to express them. I could have just taken a photograph and painted from that, but somehow, not using a camera is like an invitation and a challenge to come up with something that a camera can't capture. 

In this painting, I added more trees than there are in the scene. When I started to paint, I realised that most of the dark reflections were made by taller trees in the background but I didn't want them in the picture as there would have been too many of them, so to get a lot of darkness in the water, I extended the reflections of the five trees to suit the composition. The painting below was also done at the same spot so the actual view shows the deviation a composition can inspire compared to what is there.

The Quiet of Winter, 2021, oil on canvas, 66.5 x 66.5 cm.

The actual view where these two paintings were based on.

I've always loved Vermeer's painting of Delft and those reflections on the water. Every time I drive around Lake Wendouree and see trees reflected in the dark water on a grey day, it reminds me of the Vermeer painting. You can see the simplification Vermeer adopted to render the water. His picture was at the back of my mind when I painted Reflections, Silver and Green.

View of Delft, 1659-1661, oil on canvas, 98 x 1180 cm.

 

Blue Haze, Summer.

Blue Haze, Summer, 2023, oil on canvas, 46.25 x 66.5 cm

One of the most striking characteristics of nature is the subtlety of its colours. So subtle are they that they seem to be transparent as if not to be there at all. The colour blue is perhaps the most dominant and lends an aura to the natural world that is both poetic and powerful.

This painting is a simplification of the actual scene, as all of my paintings are, and of course the scene in is always changing so there needs to be a certain removal from what is being seen and painted.

 

The Gloaming

The Gloaming, 2023, oil on linen, 51 x 61.25 cm.

I often take a look from the window on the stairs and one evening I saw the moon amidst dark clouds as the sun had set. A few days later I went to Lake Wendouree and took a few mental notes of the colours on the water at a similar time of day. So this painting was done in the studio based on recollections of the colours when the gloaming is present.