io mi senti' svegliar (london bridge)
2017
oil on canvas
80 x 100 cm
The composition of this painting originates from a photo I took standing on London Bridge looking towards the Southwark side.
I enjoyed applying thin washes of bright oil colour to see how the layers of different colour mixed on the canvas with the gestural marks and the brushwork effects evolving naturally as the image developed. With hindsight this painting - like several from this time - seems to presage my move into abstraction about twelve months later.
io mi senti' svegliar dates from the end of a four year period from 2013 to 2017 during which I had taken the human figure as my focus. In doing so I consciously moved away from the realist or life-like portraiture produced during my time in Düsseldorf. The title comes from a line in Dante's La Nuova Vita.
As inspiration during this time I looked to my past but also to the present. I had used photographic images as source material for the first time while still in Düsseldorf and this practice increased dramatically from late 2013 onwards. No longer painting portraits from life I looked to photographs for images of the human figure with which to work. Most were found on the internet but occasionally, such as here, I used a photo I had taken myself.
exhibitions
similar artwork
the human figure human figures 2013 - 2017 oil colour on canvas or board
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