gestation


                                      self portrait at seventy six. oil on wood panel. 55x52 cms



                                     landscape , spine. oil on canvas. 120x120cms.


I do like my paintings to develop slowly as it gives me time to rethink things. This s.p. began four or five years ago and both it and I have changed. The hair is more grey, the moustache less full, the cheeks re more lined and all this while the painting waited, its face turned to the wall. I would take it back and repaint it, editing some what, leaving some areas intact, removing and overpainting others before returning it to its waiting room. There are others which have experienced the same slow roll of time. It feels more than a notation or a snapshot and more like scrutinising, experiencing the passage of time with paint. So too is the landscape painting which has had its own gestation period as the seasons have changed and the painting has kept pace. Nature and painting and time in flux.

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