Heligan
I have been to the lost gardens of Heligan a couple of times but not really appreciated the extent of the more wildlife areas of the gardens. I had spoken to them many years previously about painting a mural but nothing came of this and I hadn't been in touch since. But out of the blue I had a phone call from the Managing director Peter Stafford enquiring if I was the artist who appeared in the BBC Wildlife magazine having won the category Animals in the environment. He had found my name in the phone book and liked my work and would I be interested in coming to Heligan for a chat.We had a meeting just to start the conversation rolling and met for a second time to discuss the possibility of completing a project at the gardens.
The Project
The brief came from the conversation and how I interpreted that conversation. I was commissioned for one piece and see how we got on from there. I got the impression that because they had invested heavily in photographic equipment that just producing a photo-realistic painting wasn't preferred and it should be something the viewer would stop and look at, maybe have an opinion but couldn't ignore. So there really wasn't a brief just an interpretation.
I spent the next 10 weeks thinking about the project. My initial thoughts were to produce several pieces of art that would be show outside and allowed to gradually rot or disappear back into the soil, a continuing theme at the gardens. The first would be a painting in oils or acrylic, I settled on acrylics painted on a special exterior ply.
But the subject now that's another thing !
A silent tear
I first came up
with several ideas from tiles to sculptures hoping that it would lead to a
series of art for the gardens, a project. These ideas may develop over time and
I think a couple of them would be very interesting and challenging.
After many hours thinking and sketching my start was from a
painting by Rene Magritte called ‘the son of man’. I wanted to make the character
more relevant by using the hoodie instead of the smart suited bowler hatted ‘uniform’
of the past, but instead I wanted the figure to be non-gender or age specific.
The painting grew as I worked, nothing was planned beyond the figure and
everything was developed directly on the board. The board I used is the
dimensions of a standard external door using specialised plywood, I had in mind
to let all my art be used outside eventually rotting back into the earth.
Now on to the painting
