Oil & Cold Wax on Canvas 91 x 91 x 4 cm
This is the work currently in the studio. After a recent visit to Berlin I decided to produce a series of paintings based on the VolksPark at Friederichschain. Volkspark is a large public space situated in the eastern part of Berlin and it has a fascinating and complex history. I won't go into the details here as they are readily available on Wikipedia and other sources and I have included a short extract below from the Wikipedia entry to give you some background information.
I know that many of you are interested in how I use cold wax medium and the processes and techniques I use to create individual paintings. The starting point was a layer of cold wax with burnt umber and Payne's Grey, applied with brayers and sponges. The intention was to create an initial layer of random texture and irregular impasto. The trees and branches were drawn by trailing thin oil paint mixed with turpentine from various angles and directions across the surface of the canvas. I find that liquid paint and gravity is more effective at capturing the unexpected linear qualities of tree trunks and branches rather than painting directly with brushes. After 24 hours drying time I started to work with an assortment of palette knives, brushes and crumpled foil, slowly enhancing definition and form. My experience with intaglio printmaking and etching is constantly employed in my work.
The control of depth and perspective is a key element in my work and I have used diminishing size and aerial perspective to reflect distance and space. Nature doesn't employ pencils and paint brushes to produce reality so I try to avoid over reliance on traditional methods of application. I find that paper and card are very useful for creating lines and marks and depending on the thickness, can be shaped to create curves and broken line effects. It is also at this stage that I score into the surface of the wax with bamboo sticks and knives. These approaches combine to develop a rich and variegated surface.
At the end of the war Berlin was divided into four parts by the Allied Powers, and the Volkspark resided in the Soviet Sector. The reconstruction of the park was therefore undertaken by the German Democratic Republic. A plan was devised by Reinhold Linger, the GDR director of landscape and park architecture, to create two small artificial mountains in the park out of rubble from the bombed-out city. (Similar projects were undertaken throughout postwar Germany, and such peaks are called Schuttberge in German.) In 1946 the bunkers were destroyed, filled, and covered by over two million cubic meters of rubble from the ruins of destroyed buildings. The larger of the two hills became known as both "Mont Klamott" and "Großer Bunkerberg", the "tall bunker mountain", and is 78 meters tall. The smaller hill, "Kleiner Bunkerberg", the "small bunker mountain", has a height of 48 meters. With the passage of time and the growth of greenery, the hills now appear to be completely natural features.
Wikipedia
As I mentioned earlier I work with images in series. It is impossible to capture every aspect of a scene in a single painting and with the potential outcomes almost limitless that it makes sense to explore alternative realizations of an idea or concept.
