Signlessness, aimlessness and emptiness.
HI, AND THANK YOU FOR SIGNING UP TO MY MAILING LIST. I am not a Buddhist, but I do find many appealing understandings within its teachings, including the three properties in the title of this blog post which I believe are referred to as the ‘Three doors to...
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Watercolours
“This intensity of seeing – the riot of reality in the retina allows the artwork to release back to us its clarity of vision”.
Taken from ‘Land’ by J. Winterson, A. Gormley and C. Richardson.
Listening to Sibelius
This 20cm acrylic ink on board is a response to my love of the music of Sibelius. I enjoy the darkness and power of his music, its tender lyricism and sense of melancholy. The piece is one of a set of 10 paintings, some on paper. Please use the Contact form to enquire further.
Searching for balance
Acrylic inks and paint on a 50cm cradled board. Although at one level, this painting responds to the English rural landscape, through the acid yellow that April brings, there is a lot more going on. I love arranging shapes, built up by layering paint or ink. I never have a plan at the start, but simply make decisions as I go, based on what feels right to me. I love the power of this composition. It is clear about itself: clear edges, clear relationship between different shapes. But it also offers a fascinating invitation to take part in its search for balance.
Come close or move away?
Family Therapy
Collage
“Looking is an act of renewal.”
“Art slows us down because we have to stop and spend time with it…. not glancing or skimming….not looking for diversion”..
Taken from ‘Land’ by J. Winterson, A. Gormley and C. Richardson.
Since early 2021 Ruth has explored the use of collage in her work. Playing with a combination of hand-painted, acid free tissue papers, and opaque off-cuts of her watercolours, the compositions are a natural evolution from the translucent, layered watercolour work. Evocative of the moods and textures of her favourite places these pieces demonstrate her strong abilities with composition and line.
It has met with much approval! And not everyone sees it in this light.
“Storm on Harbour Road” came into being out of my frequent walks along Blackshore, Southwold Harbour. I love this place in all weathers. In stormy weather it is made brilliantly noisy with the winds whipping the rigging, making a band of clattering percussion and the whining of taut, straining steel. Calm or storm set, the place has a creative, straightforward workmanlike energy. Orderliness has no place. The composition is truly cacophonous in its piles of fishing industry tackle, black huts and rusty roofs, not to say boats of every size and hue. I identify with it and always enjoy being there. 30cm collage on board.
“Incoming tide”. Saltmarshes are another favourite walking habitat. I always feel that there is something raw about these watery boundaries between sea and land. As a Botany and Zoology graduate I’m aware of their importance in the management of tidal surges and rising sea levels. Along the Suffolk coast, much has been done to rebuild them for these purposes. I hope the textures and colours of this large collage on board echo the nature of these important places. Approx 90 x 70cm
Oils
‘Abstract art…. provides a challenge for the viewer to look within themselves for a reaction’.
Jacky Bowring in ‘Melancholy and the landscape’
May 2023 selection
Click on each image for information about its development.
“Black tar and rust” This large oil on board sold recently I’m delighted to say. It’s an abstract take on my local Suffolk coast harbour at Southwold. Most people love its black huts and their rusty roofs. Georgia O Keefe is quoted as saying;”I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn’t say any other way…” This composition of dark, of blue and of random lines and shapes that criss cross Blackshore expresses my pleasure in that place.