Foreboding Show, March 2016
Storm Clouds series
Dramatic skies, brooding, ominous and full of threat and natural power, are the subject of the series Storm Clouds. On a certain level they are representational depictions of the skies that I experience living in Dungeness, Kent. On the edge of Romney Marsh, where the plain is open and flat, it is an idiosyncratic coastal community next to the sea with the looming Nuclear Power station as my immediate neighbour. This imposing landscape leads to inspiration to a theme of the power that I feel here. By working with the scale, I want to engender the feeling of being small and vulnerable, with an inability to influence the environment in which you find yourself. These images are also an emotional depiction of a sense of being ineffectual when faced with forces of the inevitable within life experiences.
By using a mix of media the different elements are revealed. The oil paintings show the beauty of dramatic and formidable skies. Whereas the drawings using mixed media are more abstract and more elemental with the looseness expressed though the layers of charcoal, pastels, spray paint and carborundum. These express the volatile essence of the brewing menacing storm clouds that we are unable to control or divert.
A feeling of being overwhelmed by power that is uncontainable and the feelings of despair this conjures up are encapsulated in the ominous gathering storm. The scale of the untameable weather conditions that envelop one and the consequential feeling of vulnerability reflect the moods that we encounter in our lives.
The series includes large pieces (1.2m x1.5m) of charcoal, pastel, ink and carborundum. Intended to give a feeling of smallness in a storm of a magnitude that renders the viewer in awe of nature. Some of the smaller pieces are the more abstract renderings of the turbulence of the storm clouds.
‘Gathering Storm’, triptych. Conservation glass Charcoal, pastel. oil, spray paint, carborundum, & glitter. £10,000 The centrepiece for the Foreboding show. Intended to highlight the overwhelming storm clouds and the feeling of powerlessness this can create.
‘Power’. Conservation glass Charcoal, pastel. oil, spray paint, carborundum & glitter. 119cm x 153cm x 3cm. £3,500
‘Storm at Dungeness’. Conservation glass Charcoal, pastel. oil, spray paint, carborundum & glitter. 119cm 153cm x3cm. £3,500
‘Powerstation & The Calm’. Oil on gesso board. 45 cm x60 cmx 4cm. £1,400
‘Powerstation & The Storm’. Oil on gesson on board. 45cm x 60cm x 4cm. £1,400
‘Stormclouds’. Charcoal, pastel. oil, spray paint, carborundum, & glitter. Conservation glass, black frame. 95cm x 72cm x 4cm. £450
‘Ominous’. Charcoal, pastel, oil, spray paint, carborundum, & glitter. Conservation glass, white frame. 95cm x 72cm x 3cm. £450