Hidden Heights

Oil On aluminium 50 x 60 cm(2009)

I begin with the fantasy of pretending to step into a view, a landscape.
I walk through urban streets, hoping to hide from the city in a deserted area of a municipal common.
Listening to the whisper of distant traffic, I begin to experience a solitude, an almost rural quietness in these spurious surroundings, where anything could happen.
I sense the danger of retreating into the pleasures of nature. At this point I attempt to capture this recess of the landscape by photographing it and creating the source of my painting.
Back in the studio the role of painting begins: engaging with the emotional influence of the light and weather, with the tension between presence and absence.
The finished painting, Hideaway, a view tempered by mood and brushwork, completes the search for escape.