Current and recent work
I have embarked on a large, extremely dramatic and highly detailed painting that I’m calling ‘Jubilee’. This is a painting showing the climax of four days of celebrations for the Queen’s golden jubilee in June 2002; a flypast of many classic aircraft over Buckingham Palace ending with a spectacular formation consisting of The Red Arrows with a British Airways Concorde in between them. I’ve designed the painting to have a very unusual perspective and a powerful composition. This painting will be far more than a mere historical illustration; it will be a major artistic showpiece that has a strong aesthetic appeal. If it continues to go as well as it has so far, it will be the best painting I have ever done.
The background inspiration for this painting is the spectacular panoramic depictions of Venetian festivals by Canaletto, but make no mistakes - my painting is a thoroughly modern image. Even though it is unfinished, so far everyone who has seen the painting has been astonished. It has taken a great deal of time, research, many preparatory studies, as well as carefully planned perspectival calculations to create this painting. I’ve also had to spend a lot of money on expensive photography of the whole palace area, including aerial photography, to use as references. It is one of the most ambitious and spectacular paintings I have ever undertaken; but will this effort be worth it? Watch this space!
In contrast to my highly detailed show-piece paintings like ‘Blickling Hall’ and ‘Canary Wharf seen from Hilly Fields, Brockley’ (and ‘Jubilee’ mentioned above), I have started work on some far simpler reflective paintings like my ‘The Other Side’ series, many of which have been inspired by the music of Brian Eno. I paint these in between other work including long and intensive sessions of work on ‘Jubilee’ as a kind of relief from the technical tensions that those highly detailed paintings commit me to. These quieter paintings will feature in the next Open Studio day in Brockley.
Discussions have started with a major independent television production company about a TV series of my own about art – but with a special twist, though I can’t describe what it’s about for obvious reasons. So far a ‘taster tape’ of me presenting the proposed programme has been made and the reaction has been very good. A major UK broadcaster has been very enthusiastic about the idea - and me, however, I’ve been down this road many times before, and because it is so very hard to get anything past all the final hurdles in the world of television I’m not ‘counting any chickens’ yet.
Work continues towards producing paintings for another formal exhibition (the date and venue for which still have to be fixed). The likely title and theme for the exhibition will be ‘Full Circle’ a semi-autobiographical display of paintings of various stone circles around the British Isles.