I’ve always painted and drawn and it seems an entirely natural thing to do. I paint in oils and acrylic handle entirely differently and require different techniques. Both mediums allow infinite variation.
I love the way you can use paint which is transparent, highly textured, or anything in between to utilise a full range of the deepest and most subtle colour. Painting is about what you can do with paint and I do it for its own sake.
I would say my methods are traditional. I paint in oils on canvas using my fingers, palette knives, brushes and any other suitable instrument. I paint in acrylic on board and paper. I also draw from life which gives me underpinning skills that I use in painting.
I’m drawn to abstraction, but my work is rarely totally abstract or representational. It usually lives somewhere between and I like that people can take their own meaning from it.
Where the river ran – 2018. Private collection.
Our reality is mind made and all abstract images are to some extent evocative of image. All representations carry a significant degree of abstraction: (“Ceci n’est pas une pipe”). There is a story I like about Picasso: A man approached the artist and said that the trouble with him was that he didn’t paint things as they are. Picasso replied that he didn’t know what that would be like. The man got irate and produced a photograph of his from his wallet and said, “There, you see, that is a picture of how my wife really is.” Picasso looked at it and said, “Really Monsieur? She is rather small and grey and flat isn’t she?
Ralph Aldhous Art 