A pattern that is scattered, a structure which remains still
The strength of colour combined with the transience of water
Changing light as a fundamental concern in my work
Landscape provides the immense scale which demands of seeing an attention to great distances and intimate detail. It is not my intention to paint nature in a pictorial manner. I want to use the landscape as a way of coming to terms with energy and force. Most of all I want to acknowledge “stillness” at the centre of the struggle. It is not my intention to deny imagery but to reach beyond it into experience and imagination; collecting inspiration from the shadow cast by a cloud or the physical presence of time and volume, the sense of which I enjoy while walking on hillsides or running my fingers through sand. The wealth of creative seeing gathered in an afternoon could take a lifetime to understand and express.
The paintings do not always have an objective end in mind. Some might appear more finished than others. My own preference is often for the more exploratory statement that may at first seem ephemeral. However it is this “half-realised” form that to me is closer to reality.
I find pattern in the structure of a shell and also in the arrangement of these shells as they lie in disarray subject to the movement of the tide. The edge of the paper proposed its own reality. Edge in Nature is never as within the rectangle of paper. To cover it up is to reduce the work to a detail. I see drips, splashes, bleeds and the gentle scrubbing out of colours as the essential counter-balance to critical line. I want to encourage the exploration of edge and surface, allowing the paint to escape, flow over and be unexpected, stretching the possibilities of interpretation.
When I start to paint it is essential to allow this reality to take over. The brush marks on the paper develop characteristics which I respond to and develop with colour. It is the painting which is expressed and seen. Particular visits to Donegal and Cornwall have been important to me, as they have been times when I have realised my own preferences for line and colour. I have developed a preference for cadmium orange, ultramarine blue, terre verte and raw umber, a range of colours inspired by the atmospheric qualities of natural light.
Lynne Davies–Jones
Artist’s Statement May 1984
