CONTINUATION 1980 – 2020 – J.N.PEARCE ARTIST

CLEMENT’S GARDEN

The artist/writer Clement Griffith has a large garden in North London. I began painting the above oil in mid-April 1986, attracted by the long grass and dandelions. As time passed the flowers became clocks and the horse-chestnut leaves burgeoned to dominate the composition. The leaves seemed to accumulate light and emit an inner glow.

People often say my pictures are like photographs, but they’re not photo-realist because I don’t paint from photographs. My friend Susan Herivel gave an apter characterisation: Photosynthetic Realism.

As a full-time teacher, I continued painting and exhibiting work, but after the above two paintings were exhibited in the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, I was approached by the Gallerist John Davies, who offered to buy and sell my work. I was able to limit teaching activities and devote more time to painting.

Though I still used various red/green colour combinations, my colour became more nuanced and primaries seldom appeared. I came to regard my pictures as no more than drawings in paint.

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OTHER SUBJECTS

JACKIE’S GARDEN

The garden belonging to my friend and colleague, Jackie Baker, has been an ever-changing subject for my paintings over many years. Jackie’s interest in natural history, as well as the large extent of her garden, inclines her to keep at least some of it in a ‘well neglected’ state.

When painting ‘Brambles’ in Jackie’s garden, I had the realisation that, while I am using a visual medium in analysing the light reflected from or filtering through the leaves, the plants are also using light in the process, known as photosynthesis, upon which the ecology, economy, culture and consciousness of the earth depends, including my ability to exist in the garden painting them.

These paintings are close-ups of plant communities in the margins of cultivation and wilderness – I call them plantscapes rather than landscapes. Gardens – small, fenced-off, owned areas of the planet – offer a sense of remoteness from the world, yet they play a unique ecological rôle.

OTHER SUBJECTS

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Circa 1983 Cateracts, Dartmoor. Oil on panel approx 3’6″ x 4′

OTHER LONDON GARDENS

NORMANDY

Les Bouillons

Over the years the time I spend on each painting has extended and has become part of the subject. The finished ‘plantscapes’ result from my efforts to paint a particular changing scene on site within a particular time-span.