Vive la differance"

All beauty has a strangeness within and an element of the "forbidden". If an artist is unable to portray the real beauty before him, what ever the sex shape colour or age of the model, then he performs the art of the voyeur. The inability to accept and appriciate the beauty of all our differences if left unquestioned becomes the root of racial hatred. The pornographic industry and concentration camps alike proclaim the cheapness of human flesh. An artist's job must be to see that priceless jewel of induvdality that lies within each of us. If the world remains unable to see the beauty in all human forms then the case for cloning of humans can only become stronger, "Vive la differance!"
Life drawing is perhaps the most important part of being an artist and yet I hear they no longer teach drawing in many art schools, no matter what form your art takes it is essential I find every couple of years to touch base and look again at the human form. The self portrait is yet a another almost theraputic tool which in my case allows me to remain connected to the human race reminding me that I too even in my solitary monastic existance am part of something much bigger.

Now you see it, now you don't.

Everything is in a constant state of change on our planet often so small we hardly notice the difference but then just occasionally there's a big one. Towards the end of last summer while up on the Isle of Lewis I took a stroll along the length of Traigh Mhor beach and up along the cliff edge to Tolsta Head where during the nesting season Skewers fly in low threatening to vomit or shit on any intruders. I spent some time sketching the dramatically weathered cliffs and magnificent pinical forms and later did an oil painting from one of the sketches.

This spring I returned to Lewis to continue building work on the barn adjoining my house at 17 New Tolsta. One day while in Stornoway I bumped into a neighbour who was eager to inform me that the great stone stack at Sgeirean Thealair had fallen. I struggled to remember just where this was and then realised that it was that which I had painted the previous year. So what you see in the picture is not what you get as hundreds of tons of rock have crashed into the sea leaving a considerably blunter form.

There is something immensely theraputic about staring out to sea. Julius Olsson the St Ives school artist did this for practically all of his painting life with some remarkably well observed images of light on water.

Flooded track to field.

This winter promised to be long and some forcast it to have six periods of intense cold. True there has been bitter frost and unusually deep snow but the New Year started with a wet and relatively warm spell which has meant its been possible to roam. In doing so I came across this old farm track with the late morning sun streaming down through skelital branched trees with glistening ivy covered banks and an almost perfect mirror reflection. It is an image that sums up for me this time of year in Central Brittany when it is possible to see deeper into the heart of this landscape uncluttered by summer boccage and fields crammed tall with maize. Winter sunlight has a special quality that simply by its rarity lifts the spirit and in the protected shelter of the farm lanes spring seems so close you can smell it. Gone are the fungal decaying months of autumn along with the fettered house bound mid winter hibernation and hope returns anew with a fettling shaft of sunlight. Contre jour the silhouetted trunks partition the light over faultlesss waters that demand of the child within to hurl a twig and ripple that mercury surface with little outward curling waves.

Winter reflections in Brittany.

L'hiver cet année est plutôt une question de survivre est je sais il y a des autre qui a plus de mal que moi mais peut être eu il vis pas dans une grand maison du 1692 et qui n'est pas facile a chauffer. C'est pourquoi j'ai déménager pour vivre dans mon étalier avec mon travail, mais l'instant que il y a le moindre du soleil je sort pour couper le bois sur les talus et ramasser les paner pour faire un bon soupe.

The work is now all signed, something I often forget to do. I have decided to leave the bulk of them unframed as they are easier to transport plus there being limitted exhibition space. While I accept gallery commission on work I do object to paying commission on a frame which I have paid for and may very well be discarded as not suitable for the customers decor. I have so enjoyed these paintings of Scotland that it is only now I realise there are other exhibitions here in Brittany later in the year and they also demand new work. Since I will be in Scotland from March to May it is now that I must paint. We are in the heart of winter so low reflective light, skelital trees and their shadows will be my subjet matter. There is as usual at this time of year significant amounts of water standing in the meadows alongside the river and it is here that I can continue the across the water theme with reflections as well as shadows able to indicate what lies outside the limits of the picture.

Feathered friends

The long winter evenings without TV can be a most creative time of year and between painting a draw full of feathers from road kill finds can provide a humorous interlude.

Across the water.

Having been brought up on the Mull of Kintyre with my back to Beinn Ghuilean and an uninterrupted view across The Firth of Clyde to the Isle of Arran I have found that this prospect has always remained my ideal where ever I happened to be living as well as a constant theme to paint. Throughout the preparation for the exhibition on the Island of Gigha water and the way light pays on its surface has always been a dominant feature.The latest batch of paintings has concentrated on the burn meeting the sea and with patterns carved into or spreading across the sands. It is often when finding the abstract within land or seascape that I feel liberated from the exactitude of detail and any preciseness of brush stroke to become more expressive.