The Self-Isolation Residency
Athole House Studio
Dunoon, Scotland, 2020-2021
Portrait (Virtual) Exhibition
Air Gallery, Manchester, UK, 2020
During the flight back to Scotland I resolved that this enforced hiatus must be considered and appreciated as an opportunity rather than endured as a problem. This was going to be a conscious journey of introspection regarding my creative practice; allowing me to explore my artistic motivations in the widest possible sense. Although particularly regarding the ever-problematic subject of painting.
Athole House Studio
Dunoon, Scotland, 2020-2021
Portrait (Virtual) Exhibition
Air Gallery, Manchester, UK, 2020
During the flight back to Scotland I resolved that this enforced hiatus must be considered and appreciated as an opportunity rather than endured as a problem. This was going to be a conscious journey of introspection regarding my creative practice; allowing me to explore my artistic motivations in the widest possible sense. Although particularly regarding the ever-problematic subject of painting.
My 'Personal Topographies' series was the main body of work to come out of this residency, that is covered fully in it's own right via this link. Before I began that work and as part of it's development process, I commenced with research considering various other possible directions and techniques. As I was pretty much confined to the studio 23 hours a day my first instinct was to explore myself, portraiture, and my immediate surroundings, still life; and often both in combination. 'Desiderata: a self-portrait' (above), which stemmed from this period, was shown as part of 'Portrait', a very successful 'virtual' exhibition run by Air Gallery; one of the first exhibitions of its type to run during lockdown.
Although this initial work was successful in it's own right I quickly became aware that there was something more important to be considered as part of my isolation. In the past I have made a lot of landscape work and still have sketchbooks full of it during my reflective periods I looked through these, along with a great deal else of my back catalogue, such as work from an earlier period as a process painter which considered my palette and relationship to paint in very specific terms. It was the influence of both of these subjects, landscape and process painting, combined with notions of how I have evolved internal landscapes of my years of travel which culminated in my 'Personal Topographies Series' of paintings for the solo exhibition which reopened Dunoon Burgh Hall for it's first exhibition after the Covid lockdown ended.