Landscape painting does not have to record every tree, building or field exactly as it appears. My paintings begin with real places, but what usually attracts me is the underlying arrangement: the shapes of the land, the line of a road or coast, and the way one area of colour sits beside another.
That can be seen most clearly in my aerial landscapes, although the same process also influences my coastal paintings and seascapes.
Landscapes Seen from Above
From above, the countryside becomes easier to read as a pattern. Field boundaries create a loose geometry, roads form lines across the land and clusters of buildings interrupt the larger areas of colour.
These are working landscapes rather than untouched countryside. The marks made by farming, roads and settlements are part of what gives each place its structure.
I use my own photographs as reference, but I do not try to include everything the camera recorded. Distance is simplified, unnecessary detail is removed and the larger shapes are allowed to carry the composition. This is where the painting begins to move away from straightforward realism.
Between Realism and Abstraction
The term abstract realist is useful because the finished paintings sit somewhere between the two. The place remains recognisable, but colour, shape and line become equally important.
A field may be strengthened into a clearer block of colour. A road may become a stronger dividing line. Buildings seen from a distance may be reduced to a cluster of marks rather than painted individually.
The same principle applies when I paint a coastline. The meeting of land and sea provides its own structure, sometimes seen from above and sometimes across the horizon. In the seascapes, the divisions are less geometric, but the balance between observation and simplification remains.
Colour and Distance
A view from above can contain an enormous amount of information. Simplifying it allows the eye to travel through the painting without becoming caught in every small detail.
Colour helps separate one area from another and establish distance. Some colours come directly from the landscape; others are adjusted as the painting develops. The aim is not to reproduce the photograph exactly, but to retain the character of the place while making the composition work on canvas.
Rooted in Real Places
Although these are contemporary landscape paintings, they are not imaginary scenes. They begin with places I have visited and photographed: fields, coastlines, waterways and views through the window of an aircraft.
The viewpoint may turn the landscape into something close to abstraction, but the real place remains underneath. That connection between observation and pattern is what continues to draw me back to landscape painting.