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 if you look, you’ll see they’re not photo-realist: I never 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 found a gallery that would buy and sell my work, and was able to limit teaching 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 what I’ve called a ‘well neglected’ state.
When painting ‘Brambles’ in Jackie’s garden, I was struck with the realisation that, while I am using a visual medium in analysing the light reflected from or filtering through the leaves, the plants themselves 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 here painting them.
These paintings are close-ups of plant communities in the margins of cultivation and wilderness – plantscapes rather than landscapes. Gardens – small, fenced-off, owned areas of the planet – offer a sense of remoteness from the world, yet can play a unique ecological rôle.
OTHER SUBJECTS
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OTHER LONDON GARDENS
NORMANDY
Les Bouillons
Over the years the time I spend on each painting has got longer and longer. The finished ‘plantscapes’ result from my efforts to paint a particular changing scene on site within a particular time-span.
Self Portrait, La Trancardière, 2016
John N. Pearce
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