Abstract Landscapes

“Colour in itself expresses something, never mind the subject” Van Gogh. This work is related to another body of work, Minimal Landscapes. Like that work I seek to interpret the landscape both visually and emotionally. The work is influenced by the American school of Abstract Expressionism with Mark Rothko just one influence among a group of artists that also include Clyfford Still and of course Jackson Pollack. What interests me particularly about this particular ‘ism’ is the way that art became distanced even further from reality and became completely abstracted to colour and emotion. The Impressionists (and the brief Fauvist period) too explored colour in new and bold ways of course, but the subject is always identifiable and with Abstract Expressionism it isn’t. Photographically I find ‘paint’ artists the most inspiring of all and whilst I prefer not to use the rather clichéd concept of ‘painting with a camera’, I do enjoy the effects created by multiple exposure; something I learned by accident years ago when using a Voitlander folding camera circa 1926. I simply forgot to wind the film on!