SO SORRY TO BE SO ABSENT/Landscape Artist of the Year

I am afraid I have been a bit pants as a blogger for some time really.....but I do have an excuse, sort of!

This week we are moving house.  The lead up to this moment has been very unrelaxing, including a bout of shingles - so I am afraid I just haven't had the head for blogging.

However, watching last night's Landscape Artist of the Year, won by Nerine Tassie (her maiden name) inspired me somewhat, so I thought I would just write a few words despite being surrounded by boxes and removal men!

I know that this year's programme was thought, by many, to have had some odd results - the chosen trio for the final not necessarily artists who were generally understood and liked.  In fact, I had a very hard time getting to grips with some of the imagery liked by the judges - but I finally understood, in the end, that the judges were not the slightest bit interested in anything resembling a well-painted accurate rendering of a view....they were looking for very much more.  They wanted their artists to demonstrate an ability to use the landscape PURELY AS A STARTING POINT, and then to have the courage to allow their imaginations to take over in order to produce a painting showing unique vision - vision which was as much about internalising the landscape and reinventing it, as anything else.

Given this concept, I enjoyed the final, enjoyed a glimpse into the working practices of three very different artists, and thoroughly enjoyed seeing the secondary images they produced outside of the final, where they had time to realise their visions without the time constraint of 4 hours.

Nerine Tassie's work won the day.  Whether you like her work, or not, it is undeniable that she fulfilled the brief of producing a work which demonstrates unique personal vision.  Here are two more pieces from her website, one of her mystical woodland scenes, and a seascape:

http://www.nerinetassie.com/#!new-work/cjg9

In neither work do we find pedestrian copying of reality going on.  This is the work of a painter who has found her own unique style as an artist. 

Like them, or hate them, it is undeniable that these works are atmospheric, intriguing, and probably will leave a much more powerful impression on the viewer than "prettier" pieces.

from her website:

Nerine McIntyre still paints under her maiden name Tassie. She graduated from Edinburgh College of Art in 2002 with a degree in Fine Art. Natural spaces and forms provide the basis and inspiration for her work, in particular the coastal waters and woodlands around her home. These landscapes are ever changing and at times daunting and they provide infinite subject matter for her work. Her paintings are primarily an exploration of the mystery of nature within this subject matter and she says she has always sought to create a strong sense of atmosphere and connection to place within her work.

 

More recently she has been exploring the relationship between composition and frame within each painting, experimenting with this balance in order to create more depth of focus for the viewer.

 

"I enjoy the act of painting and the physicality of the paintwork on the canvas and so my process of working involves experimenting with base layers of varied materials in order to constantly develop new experiences within each painting". Exploration of materials and using a variety of painterly techniques creates a rich texture to the work and means that each painting takes on its own developing surface and object quality.

 

 

I feel quite privileged to have been able to watch Nerine work and I am personally glad she won.

 

Back to the packing....................