My latest collection, The Sublime Horizon, is inspired by a distant storm I saw recently.
When out and about in my garden one day I noticed the sky had turned a beautiful orangey-pink colour and glowed so brightly in contrast to the blue and grey clouds beneath. While admiring how striking the sky looked, I noticed flashes of orange and pink light and realised that I was viewing a thunderstorm but from a completely different vantage point (pictured below).
It was interesting to me how something so violent, frightening and destructive, from a distance can look so calm, beautiful and awe-inspiring and it was this juxtaposition that I wanted to explore in my latest collection of paintings.
The colour palette for The Sublime Horizon collection is adapted from the colours that could be seen across the sky. With this established I was able to go into my favourite part of the creative process and play and experiment across the six panels, applying acrylic paint with a wide array of different paintbrushes and palette knives. As part of my process, I like to play with paint for as long as possible and try not to hold anything precious until the final composition starts to come together. This way I'm able keep things spontaneous and allow little accidents to happen that breathe more energy and life into the work.
As the final design of each of the six panels began to emerge, I noticed that they looked as though they were representing different stages of a storm. Some looked calm and tranquil, while others looked more energetic or had more tension. This idea of stages of the storm went on to inspire the titles I gave to each artwork, which each denoting one of six points in the timeline of this natural phenomena. An example of this can be seen above with the work 'II. Where the Sky Splits'.
The full range of six original acrylic paintings on panel are available to purchase alongside a series of art postcards to complement the collection. You can view the full range here.
