'....The place has to inspire to get something from the heart....'
I try to keep a balance between representational line and instinctual marks, allowing the piece to change and evolve freely. My paintings are as much about how I am feeling as what my eyes are seeing.
All of my work is made in situ. By painting on canvas, board and paper and using a mixture of acylic, pastel, ink and pencil, I hope to show the atmoshere and emotion of a place in a painting.
I'm much more interested in the crash of waves on battered cliffs or the flash of light pushing through a rain cloud, than something calmer, more still.
I think these happenings say something more about human emotion and the power and beauty of the landscape around us. When I am there experiencing these amazing scenes, I feel energized, alive.
I want to show this through the paint and the marks I make. I also want to get across the presence of the place and the way the light and weather effects it.
Each mark made and paint splatter goes into adding to a paintings over all feel, so they have to be interesting, almost moving.
The place has to inspire to get something from the heart.
I want to enjoy all elements of a painting, from its structure and instant grab, to its hidden depths. Its originality, texture, blend of colours and what they are saying, its skill, softness and draftmanship to its boldness and gut. I want to feel something new, but familiar.
Landscape lends itself to this well. It is something that we can all relate to in some way. It is a good subject to explore emotion, it is constantly changing and can evoke so many different feelings and memories.
Knowing a landscape is important, but so is feeling something more abstract and less familiar. I would say that it is 50/50 whether people who buy my paintings actually know the place it is of. some like the fact that it's somewhere new to explore, when others have years worth of memories wrapped up the the place. some buy purely because they like the feeling of the colours, while others have grown up in the place, love it and need it close.
I continue to try and create more and more interesting paintings and to bring the outside in.
Saul Cathcart 2009