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.
In making this image I enjoyed applying thin washes of bright oil colour and see how the layers of colour mixed on the canvas. I also enjoyed the gestural marks and the brushwork effects which evolved naturally as the image developed. With the benefit of hindsight this painting - like several from this time - seems to presage my move into abstraction that arrived 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
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the human figure human figures 2013 - 2017 oil colour on canvas or board