Focus

Lately I've been struggling a little with my motivation and work flow, almost certainly because of the lockdown. I am now completing the second year of my BA degree from home which has been a bit difficult. Not having a dedicated studio means that my rather small bedroom has become overrun with all my painting supplies and of course the paintings themselves. It also means that there is less distinction between the time that I am working and not working. Although I love my family and love spending time with them, home is a distracting environment for me. While I was in Aberystwyth I still got distracted but the fact that I was there specifically to study helped me to focus. On the other hand since I started university I associate my home with the holidays meaning that it feels strange to work here. I expect that being restricted in terms of the places I can go has also had some impact on my inspiration considering that I am primarily a landscape painter. Either way I need to find new ways to focus and motivate myself before doing less art becomes a habit.

Sacredness and the Aesthetics of Religion

I do not belong to any religion, though as a child I went to a Church of England school and I sing in the local church choir every Christmas. I enjoy religion as an idea, a community based around faith is very appealing to me, but not to the extent that I would fake a belief I do not have. I love the aesthetic of Christianity, of gothic architecture and illuminated manuscripts, the idea of a physical object being somehow sacred. In my art I am trying to capture a feeling of sacredness without religion.

My work last semester was based around landscapes in gothic windows.

This semester I am focusing more on objects. Currently I am working on a series of miniatures so that I can make what will essentially be a reliquary or portable shrine, but with landscapes instead of religious imagery.

The countryside feels sacred to me so I wanted to show that in my art, both through it taking the form of a shrine and through the use of gold leaf which is often used in religious art.

The Importance of Places

As I have begun to focus more on landscape in my art I have become more aware of how important places are to me. I miss them in the same way that I miss people, which the current situation has made very clear. The atmosphere of a place can be as distinctive as the personality of a person, and even within a place as a whole the individual trees, hills, etc can feel very different. I think this is at least one of the reasons why I don't include figures in my landscapes, they distort the land's own personality simply by being visible. Perhaps it is also a kind of selfishness. These landscapes are mine, they came from my head and I don't want other people in them. I think mostly though that people distract from the purpose of my landscapes, as soon as you add a figure they become the focus and I feel like I might as well have painted a portrait. I want my landscapes to be like a portrait of a place, to capture the specific atmosphere of a location, whether real or imaginary.

Photo taken at the Weald and Downland Living Museum, one of my favourite places