gallery

The shape of a landscape makes an impression on us. We remember the configuration of forms, the shape of a hill, a river valley, an individual stone. We use the lay of the land to locate ourselves, to find our way from place to place, or home. Natural features become landmarks to the paths we travel.

Without conscious thought, we mark the relationship between structure and process as we respond to a landscape. We store an impression of both sight and site, a visual memory that shows, if we analyse it, how things take shape. The landforms we live and travel among have been shaped over time by the actions of wind, water, ice; the evidence of process is there, in what we see. Such observations, and analysis of them, are the underpinnings of geomorphology, a science of geology and geography, dedicated to the study of landforms and how they came to be.

These paintings take shape through an act of transference, from the surface of a natural form I have found, to the surface of the canvas. I lay the canvas on a stone surface, and work into it, registering the underlying features and composition by applying pigment or paint. The process is direct; the features of the stone come through onto the canvas, to create a physical artifact that mirrors the way landforms create space in memory: having seen, we take away an impression of a place. These paintings are literal, physical impressions of place.