Catherine Ayres
I respond to the Romantic idea of losing myself in the Landscape, and I have used Turner, Constable and Virtue as a base to this project, giving me the opportunity to explore other characteristics of theirs in my own work but with my own ideas intertwined. This project flows from previous studies, developing thoughts behind Romanticism and landscape painting.
There is a sense of human aura, however there is no visual representation of a person present. The question arises whether the viewer is the person present, have they become part of the painting?
The landscapes are English as there is a personal connection with them. They are full of memories: it is like taking a walk through a past without technology. In Digital Media, my other subject, I am dealing with the intangible whereas in Painting I am making images with tangible stuff.
The materials selected were according to the process. Priming the canvas onto the wall, with acrylic primer, allows the painting itself to decide how it would develop. Using acrylic paste as the next layer to create texture, and once dry, applying acrylic paint onto the paste layer, allowed areas of the primed canvas still visible to create the sense of space between form and colour. The combination of fast-drying acrylic paint and paste allows layering, and building my own stretchers with quadrant, giving me the option to work on the painting once stretched if necessary gives the painting a different character, and allows me to change the painted mass into an object, a physical form that can be handled.
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