English landscapes Italian landscapes Oil Tempera and Watercolour Painting Fine Art Limited edition prints

.Home .The Gallery .David's Biography .Purchasing Information .Contact Details

David writes:

"The first time I went to Italy I discovered le crete, the land South of Sienna. It was startling. Vast. It was the landscape I'd always wanted to find. I'm fascinated by the marks of cultivation, the way the land has been conquered, enclosed, planted, harvested, burned and ploughed throughout history. I'm not just interested in representation, I'm trying to get to the quality and the history of the place, through the events that have scarred it's surface. Italy fascinates me because there are parts that haven't changed for five centuries. You can see this in the first Renaissance landscape painting by Lorenzetti .

Recently, I've discovered the seascapes of the Isle of Wight , where I now live, in summer I'd just completed a painting and I sat down to watch a programme on Turner and found that he too had painted the very same view! Like Turner, I like painting big watercolours.

I explore high perspectives of fields, quarries, ravines and riverbeds. I'm keen to see the land from further and further away and to play with spatial relationships, which is why I enjoy working large scale, it offers an even bigger playground.

I want the viewer to struggle with the idea of space and to explore the qualities of paint itself, as I lead their eye down pathway, road and river .A tiny tree placed near or far breaks all the rules of the perspective system.

Technique is critical to my aesthetic. I constantly search for new technologies to make paintings: I use tempera, watercolour, oils and gesso to create wall-like textures with a sanding machine, I scratch and gouge out the paint until the surface reflects the way the land has been layered through time, and some of the final compositions are the result of pouring paint, allowing it to run across and stain the surface. And I can never quite remember my previous approach, so each painting is an act of learning to paint again.

I use tradition as my touchstone and modernism as my flight - I like painting in the clouds with a sanding machine.