Visit to India

Currently in India in Chennai formerly known as Madras. Fascinating country steeped in history and tradition. I have taken the camera so that I can capture urban scenes and life as I see it and use these for future paintings.
I had underestimated the level of poverty that I was likely to see, it is a dichotomy there are people living in palm covered wooden structures and corrugated steel fabricated buildings or even tents, no running water or sanitation but the city proudly records that an automobile is manufactured three every minute and a commercial vehicle one every 75 seconds. The business that we are visiting is on IT Highway and Paypal and Ebay, Accenture, Tata, Cognizant and many large software companies share the same stretch of highway as the temporary shelters that the people reside in.
The cows are sacred and therefore have right of way and can be seen in the middle of the highway or on the side of the road eating the garbage that is put out for them to eat. There are LPG powered yellow rickshaws and thousands of motor cycles and scooters, these appear to be the primary mode of transport and I have seen a family of five being transported in and out of the traffic on there way to wherever they were going. The roads are a cacophony of sound as the vehicles all sound there horns in an effort to alert the other road users of there presence. The vehicles have on the rear of the vehicle "sound horn" written advising the vehicle approaching that if they wish to get past just sound the horn and I know that your there and I will move over. Red lights and stop signs have no meaning, the vehicle that we have been driven in each day approaches the stop sign or red light and trucks on through blasting away on the horn to deter the traffic joining the intersection. The British presence is still in evidence with many colonial buildings still standing but many are falling into disrepair through lack of attention or lack of finance. As you can see I will have plenty of material to use for future paintings.

Sunday Morning Call

24 x 18 Acrylic on canvas board. The image shows people being drawn to church on a Sunday morning by a hidden spirit, some of the people are distracted by the shop windows and are instead drawn to shopping. I have submitted this piece to the annual Three Trees benefit Art Spree. I was at first reluctant thinking that it was maybe to abstract for the audience but have submitted it anyway together with New York Cafe. I will be interested to see the feed back and see what the audience think of the two pieces, one is more traditional and one is clearly abstract. The event is August 21st 2010, I will keep you posted.

stepping out

24 x 18 acrylic on canvas board. Three girls stepping out for a stroll down main street not a care in the world. Another similar group a small distance away probably out shopping on Mothers Day. Happy Mothers day to all you mums.

window shopping

24 x 18 Acrylic on canvas board. My work has been described as esoteric, ephemeral and nostalgic and in this piece I have attempted to capture all of those qualities. It was fun to do so I hope you enjoy viewing it as much as I did painting it.

Waterloo The Southbank revisited

I revisited the painting as I had described a lot of people movement and the solitary soldier with a back pack did not seem to promote the movement so he has been replaced with a group in transit. Its part of the process I have as over time there are several reviews and changes made as someone told me once "its not finished until you say its finished" and this is a regime that I have followed over the years.

Waterloo The Southbank

24 x 18 Acrylic on canvas board derived from photograph taken while visiting London during Summer 2009. Photograph outside Waterloo Station on the southbank in London of people walking past the entrance. The movement intrigued me, no one had time to stop or feel the rain on there faces except for the two guys beside the advertisement board who were unaware of the activity around them and just continued to chat and smoke not a care in the world. The rain was coming down at a steady drizzle so my wife and I had taken shelter in a coffee shop whilst waiting for friends we had arranged to meet. I took several photographs while sitting there and these will be used in future works.

Evening Standard

24 x 18 Acrylic on canvas board derived from photograph taken while visiting London during Summer 2009. Photograph outside Waterloo Station on the southbank in London of people walking past an Evening Standard newspaper stand. The rain was coming down at a steady drizzle so my wife and I had taken shelter in a coffee shop whilst waiting for friends we had arranged to meet. I took several photographs while sitting there and these will be used in future works.