New Paintings and Some Great Exhibition News

'Walking Towards a Shared Future,' oil and acrylic on canvas, 120 x 160 cm

This week I received some good news: this painting has been selected for the 8th Beijing International Art Biennale which this year will be showcasing artwork from 125 countries and will open on 30th August 2019. I was really pleased to find that my painting will be included and it will be my third time in this Biennale (previously, 2015/2017) and my second international art Biennale this year.

I painted this specifically for the Biennale which had the theme of 'A Colourful World and a Shared Future.' I was thinking about how the world is not groupings of separate living organisms; we all rely on one another - people, animals, plants, insects - in order to survive. The world is one organism. I was also thinking about my own relation to nature which is a deeply spiritual one and how I love to 'go missing' in the land. This could be described as my archetypal landscape because my favourite journeys always include mountains, distant vistas, colourful fields and fruit trees, and a pathway to a metaphorical future. In this case the path is conveyed by coloured bricks to represent mankind and the communities around the world and also our connection with everything else. I always feel that art can give messages to people and I hope mine is a joyful one full of optimism.

I painted this large canvas fairly last minute as so much else happened last year and I was only 5 weeks before the deadline for posting the submission materials in December! I had an idea of what I wanted to paint, the two figures being pivotal to the expression, but other than that I let the image develop and find its own colours and shapes. It is a bit more figurative than some of my recent work but I have never seen myself as an artist who can only go along one line.

Meanwhile, this week I worked on 2 new paintings which are also based on my feelings about being in the landscape and which I will post soon.

To be continued.