Old Drawings #60

Lemba (Charcoal, compressed charcoal on 60 x 60 cm cartridge paper)

This was the next drawing based on the wall at Lemba College of Art. I was getting quite excited about the turn my work had taken at this point and began to make plans to construct still life set-ups of random junk from which to make drawings.

Meanwhile, I started a painting based on this drawing. It drew no comment from any of the lecturers and as it was nearing the end of term, I think it was abandoned rather than finished (although not a lot more was planned on it).



Lemba (Oil and collage on board, 60 x 48 ins.)

Old Drawings #59

Small Lemba Drawing (Charcoal on cartridge paper)

Despite my reservations about the first trip to Cyprus, I returned to Paphos in 2000. I still didn't like it much, but a visit to the Cyprus College of Art at Lemba did pique my interest.

For some years the students at the College had been building and adding to a strange wall round the edge of the yard. Made of concrete, wire, bottles and general junk, it was a fascinating structure and it led me to produce some drawings. This was the first.

My interest was such that I immediately made this painting from the drawing. As was always the case at Uni, no one expressed any interest in either the painting or the drawing and I came to believe that it was in some way wrong.

Looking at it now, I realise that it was, as I secretly suspected then, an interesting direction I could have taken. Another nail in the coffin of my University course.



Organic Form, Lemba (Oil on blockboard, 21 x 22 ins)

Courtyard with Watermelon

Courtyard with Watermelon
(Oil on board, dimensions unknown) Private Collection

In this time of painterly inactivity, I've been doing useful things, like sorting through photographs and ephemera. As a result, I've begun to find images of paintings I sold before I could photograph them. It's quite a pleasant surprise to be reminded of long-lost "masterpieces."

I recovered this image from a poster for my solo exhibition, Aphrodite's Island (Gallagher & Turner Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne, 2000). Before I went to Cyprus for the first time, I'd promised to put on a show of paintings based on that trip, but the making of suitable pictures proved a nightmare. I didn't much care for the part of Cyprus I was in (we were staying just outside Paphos): it was dry and dusty, and given over to not very inspiring agriculture, so my source of imagery was very limited.

This picture ran aground when I found I had a painting of two doors in a not-very-interesting empty courtyard and not much else. For a while it sat in a corner of the studio and glared until something suggested itself to me. I had a small drawing (now lost) of a slice of watermelon which I realised made an inverted echo of the rounded arches of the doorways.

When I'd added the watermelon to the painting, it became one of my favourites in the show; it went onto the poster and sold at the preview.

Old Drawings #58

Collapsed Ceiling 2 (charcoal and pastel, A1 cartridge paper)

This drawing is so like the previous one that it seems daft to wait a while before posting it. Even now I'm surprised by how similar the two are.

I don't often follow up a charcoal drawing with one in pastel of the same subject, but this time I was trying to work out whether I wanted to make painting of it. I never did make up my mind and the painting didn't get made.

Old Drawings #57

Collapsed Ceiling, Cyprus
(charcoal, compressed charcoal, A1 cartridge paper)

The last Old Drawing I posted was of a building I found in Cyprus with a collapsed ceiling. This is the same building, the same collapsed ceiling. The huge slabs of concrete were still attached by the reinforcing rods and swayed slightly in the wind.

Coincidentally, in that post I mentioned that I was having problems with my left eye. It's turned out that I have ocular hypertension in that eye. Luckily, there's been no damage done so far and I'm now on a course of drops whose potential side effects are too horrible to mention.

This may account for my less than full time attention to painting at the moment.

Old Drawings #56

Cypriot Depths (Charcoal on A1 cartridge paper) Private Collection

My eyes have been bothering me lately. My left eye, in particular, has been aching now and then and blurring occasionally, so I finally gave in and went to have them tested, the first time in 13 years. As I suspected, there's been some deterioration in my vision, especially in the left eye, so I'm on the point of biting the bullet and getting some glasses.

This puts me in the slightly worrying position of not knowing how it might affect my work, how I might cope with painting while wearing glasses and - as a friend asked - whether it might lead me into more detailed painting. I think the latter is unlikely, given that my earlier painting was less detailed years ago, when my eyesight was actually better. The more detailed approach in recent years is due to other factors and is something I keep under review.

All of this, together with some Spring cleaning and some minor work on the house has led to a pause in painting. So for now, here's a drawing done after my first visit to Cyprus in 1999. It's a view into and through an old building whose roof had collapsed, possibly as a result of shelling (it was near the demilitarised zone).

This is the painting that followed on from it. Both drawing and painting were completely ignored by the tutors at Uni, of course, but that was par for the course.


Into the Depths (Oil and collage on canvas, 36 x 36 ins)

Fallen Tree

Fallen Tree (Oil on board, 12 x 12 ins)

Shortly before going on the most recent Compo & Clegg Painting Week in the Lakes, I thought I'd get some practice in on the subject matter I usually find there, so I started this painting at the Art Club. As reference material I had a black and white photocopy of an old photograph and I began the painting on an old painting of a Cyprus landscape.

I didn't quite finish it before we left for the Lakes so I brought it home, but since then I haven't had the time or inclination to complete it.

This morning, I made the time and finished off the foreground, retaining some of the orange from the Cyprus landscape. I'm pleased with this, especially as I had no colour notes to remind me of how it looked. I guess enough looking at trees and rocks pays off eventually?

Cyprus

Lemba (Oil on board) - work in progress

There's a companion piece to this Lemba painting, called Beyond Lemba; both from 2000, neither of them finished.

The reason I find myself harking back to them is that, in a kind of synchronicity, two references to Cyprus have climbed over the garden wall and stared me in the face. The most recent is a comment from Bee Skelton on my last post. The other is a pair of videos of the Cyprus College of Art in Lemba on Robbie Bushe's blog.

I've been to Cyprus twice. Once in 1999, when I stayed in Polis-

Polis Plaza (Oil on board - sold)

- and again in 2000, this time in Paphos..

This wasn't the best of times for me, so I didn't get all I might have out of the visits and my memories are filtered through a disagreeable haze. But I do still think of the long-eared hedgehogs I watched each night on the outskirts of Polis and the time spent in Limassol:

Limassol Cathedral (Oil on board, 10 x 10 ins.)

Most memorable of all was the day I had in Lemba, at the Cyprus College of Art. I was a year off graduation and still in the frame of mind where further education seemed the right course of action. Looking round the College in the hot sun, it felt like a place I could settle into and get some interesting work done. Like one of Proust's madeleines, Robbie Bushe's videos have brought back that time in all its many colours, both light and dark.

Events conspired against me and I never did get to enroll at the Cyprus College of Art. Maybe it would have done me good to go. Maybe not. That's all very much chaff in the wind now. I'm still here. Let's see what Gateshead has to offer today.