CENTRAL TO BRIAN’S WORK IS THE EXPLORATION OF TIME AND EXPERIENCE THROUGH THE LAYERING OF PAINT, COLOUR AND TEXTURE. More recently, he has taken these themes, exploring visual awareness and spatial dimension through the use of innovative loose panels and traditional canvas. All of the works are underpinned with a compelling need and desire to reference the passing of time, the layering of experience and the vulnerability of our times, in what seems to be an increasingly virtual world.
While the first Colourscapes were originally started as colour studies for the Deepest Harmony pieces, they quickly developed into a standalone series.
While the first Colourscapes were originally started as colour studies for the Deepest Harmony pieces, they quickly developed into a standalone series.The Colourscapes explore visual and spatial dimensions, celebrated through the spontaneous use of colour and texture. Each Colourscape starts as a single traditional canvas. Using a palette knife, Brian drags and spreads the paint across the canvas like the web and weft of fabric.
“When beginning a painting I usually devise a plan for the colour palette I’m going to explore but often I seem to end up going ‘off-piste’ as the piece evolves. I have no idea why I do this but I suspect it has something to do with feeling, intution and instinct clashing with ‘theory’, logic and reason. I guess I want to be taken by surprise and to be always discovering something new. Happily the sense of form I’m after grows out of this exploration of colour – at the edges of the piece to somehow define the work as a physical object in its own right, and into its surface as the multiple layers create dips, hollows and fissures …”
