Working in Series
by Paul Bloomer
For years I have worked in 'series'. Some of those 'series' have come to a close and other 'series' seem to be eternally ongoing. My Black Country etchings and woodcuts form two distinct series that I will be expanding on soon on this site and my more recent Shetland work has evolved into several ongoing series as I return over and over again to the same subjects.
The idea of working in series is not new to artists and possibly reached a something of a zenith with Monet's great series of paintings exploring the changing effects of light on haystacks and cathedral's. It is probably deeply unfashionable for any contemporary painter to even admit to liking Monet, but the late great series of huge, near-abstract canvases he produced are for me amongst the greatest paintings ever produced in the history of Western art, and I believe they still have something to teach the painters of today. I was delighted to see that the Tate modern has hung a late Monet canvas next to a Rothko to show the parallels between them. In recent decades British painter Ken Kiff has also produced a fascinating series of works that he aptly called 'The Series' exploring the complexities of his visionary imagination and subconscious using colour as the primary note in his visual language.
My own 'series' of works were not planned as such but have been a spontaneous response to particular subjects that have held deep fascination for me and that I have returned to over and over again over the last few years with out any of them reaching anything like a conclusion.
As I write this there are several series in progress – 'Today', 'Bigton Sunsets', 'Winter Sea', 'The Meeting of the Waters' and 'Flight', as well as ongoing themes such as Northern Lights and my larger imaginative studio-based canvases.
Bigton Sunsets
In 2002 I moved to the West facing village of Bigton in the south mainland of Shetland and the effect on my art was dramatic. The five years previous to that had been spent in a state of nocturnal introspection in a windowless disused telephone exchange in a remote spot on the west side of the island. Here I produced mainly black and white woodcuts, some cathartic expressions of urban strife and some healing manifestations of the newly found paradise of Shetland that I had recently discovered.
Somehow I was led to the west-facing village of Bigton in the South Mainland of Shetland and the effect on my art was immediate and dramatic. Colour and light burst forth, the old was left behind and the blind thrust into a new painterly language was traumatically birthed.
To appreciate the light one has to experience the darkness. The all encompassing darkness of a long Shetland winter intensifies the visual and emotional intensity of a Shetland sunset and it is in this spirit that I paint them, almost desperately drinking in the light and colour of this fleeting and precious moment.
Painting a sunset is not without its difficulties because it changes every few seconds, so I usually have at least six works on the go all at the same time (this pales into insignificance compared to Monet, who is rumoured to have had twenty six canvases at hand when he was painting his famous series of Haystacks, all to cope with the changes in light through the day and year.)
Winter Seas
In the winter my creativity intensifies with the brooding stormyness of the sea. Windy days draw me to the sea and laden with paints I seek to harness the elemental energy that turns the waters from a mill pond to a raging torrent. It is not the sea it self that particularly interests me but the energy that drives it. A sunny flat calm will see me equally calm but as the pressure falls and the waters swell I become animated and hardly have to think about what I'm doing, but am driven along by something bigger than myself. Over and over I paint ever changing waves and motion as I try to harness this energy with pigment. When my painting goes at its best I momentarily feel that am just the vehicle for their bringing into being.
In the ocean outside my house is a series of submerged rocks the largest of which is called the 'Muckle Baa'. In certain wind directions this causes huge white waves to break well off shore and this is of great visual interest with me.
The Meeting of the Waters
I live next to the spectacular natural tombolo of St Nininan's Isle. This is a beach of sand leading out to a small island with the ruins of an 8th century chapel on it that in the 1950s gave up a very important hoard of Pictish treasure that currently resides in the National Museum of Scotland.
During high tides in winter this beach is covered with water and the sea runs into itself from opposing directions creating a myriad of spectacular patterns that echo Pictish interlace. For me this 'meeting of the waters' symbolises physical and spiritual completeness. A bringing together of that which was once apart and is now as one.
I was very interested to see that on one of the bowls number the interlacing pattern is almost identical to that which is echoed in the ripples of the water, and I would like to think that that the 8th century artist that decorated these bowls was looking at the same scene that so much moves me today.
Flight
Though I have always been interested in birds they did not really enter my art until I came to Shetland. Seen against the constraints of urban captivity, birds symbolised freedom and I was envious of their ability to travel hither and thither especially in my days in the factory.
In Shetland, birds and freedom are every where and over time birds become as familiar friends. I usually see more Oystercatchers, and curlews in an average day than I do people, and their presence in my life brings me great comfort and security that I never found amongst buildings. The treeless landscape of Shetland lacks dominant verticals to build pictorial compositions around and birds have filled this void. Now instead of a factory chimney I draw the spiralling forms of lapwings dancing in flight and I rejoice at their presence in my life.
In autumn the landscape is filled with migrants adding primary colour to earthen autumn heather and peat. Who knows where they have come from and who knows to where they are going, but when they seek rest in Shetland on their mysterious and mystical journey, I paint them.
The idea of working in series is not new to artists and possibly reached a something of a zenith with Monet's great series of paintings exploring the changing effects of light on haystacks and cathedral's. It is probably deeply unfashionable for any contemporary painter to even admit to liking Monet, but the late great series of huge, near-abstract canvases he produced are for me amongst the greatest paintings ever produced in the history of Western art, and I believe they still have something to teach the painters of today. I was delighted to see that the Tate modern has hung a late Monet canvas next to a Rothko to show the parallels between them. In recent decades British painter Ken Kiff has also produced a fascinating series of works that he aptly called 'The Series' exploring the complexities of his visionary imagination and subconscious using colour as the primary note in his visual language.
My own 'series' of works were not planned as such but have been a spontaneous response to particular subjects that have held deep fascination for me and that I have returned to over and over again over the last few years with out any of them reaching anything like a conclusion.
As I write this there are several series in progress – 'Today', 'Bigton Sunsets', 'Winter Sea', 'The Meeting of the Waters' and 'Flight', as well as ongoing themes such as Northern Lights and my larger imaginative studio-based canvases.
Bigton Sunsets
In 2002 I moved to the West facing village of Bigton in the south mainland of Shetland and the effect on my art was dramatic. The five years previous to that had been spent in a state of nocturnal introspection in a windowless disused telephone exchange in a remote spot on the west side of the island. Here I produced mainly black and white woodcuts, some cathartic expressions of urban strife and some healing manifestations of the newly found paradise of Shetland that I had recently discovered.
Somehow I was led to the west-facing village of Bigton in the South Mainland of Shetland and the effect on my art was immediate and dramatic. Colour and light burst forth, the old was left behind and the blind thrust into a new painterly language was traumatically birthed.
To appreciate the light one has to experience the darkness. The all encompassing darkness of a long Shetland winter intensifies the visual and emotional intensity of a Shetland sunset and it is in this spirit that I paint them, almost desperately drinking in the light and colour of this fleeting and precious moment.
Painting a sunset is not without its difficulties because it changes every few seconds, so I usually have at least six works on the go all at the same time (this pales into insignificance compared to Monet, who is rumoured to have had twenty six canvases at hand when he was painting his famous series of Haystacks, all to cope with the changes in light through the day and year.)
Winter Seas
In the winter my creativity intensifies with the brooding stormyness of the sea. Windy days draw me to the sea and laden with paints I seek to harness the elemental energy that turns the waters from a mill pond to a raging torrent. It is not the sea it self that particularly interests me but the energy that drives it. A sunny flat calm will see me equally calm but as the pressure falls and the waters swell I become animated and hardly have to think about what I'm doing, but am driven along by something bigger than myself. Over and over I paint ever changing waves and motion as I try to harness this energy with pigment. When my painting goes at its best I momentarily feel that am just the vehicle for their bringing into being.
In the ocean outside my house is a series of submerged rocks the largest of which is called the 'Muckle Baa'. In certain wind directions this causes huge white waves to break well off shore and this is of great visual interest with me.
The Meeting of the Waters
I live next to the spectacular natural tombolo of St Nininan's Isle. This is a beach of sand leading out to a small island with the ruins of an 8th century chapel on it that in the 1950s gave up a very important hoard of Pictish treasure that currently resides in the National Museum of Scotland.
During high tides in winter this beach is covered with water and the sea runs into itself from opposing directions creating a myriad of spectacular patterns that echo Pictish interlace. For me this 'meeting of the waters' symbolises physical and spiritual completeness. A bringing together of that which was once apart and is now as one.
I was very interested to see that on one of the bowls number the interlacing pattern is almost identical to that which is echoed in the ripples of the water, and I would like to think that that the 8th century artist that decorated these bowls was looking at the same scene that so much moves me today.
Flight
Though I have always been interested in birds they did not really enter my art until I came to Shetland. Seen against the constraints of urban captivity, birds symbolised freedom and I was envious of their ability to travel hither and thither especially in my days in the factory.
In Shetland, birds and freedom are every where and over time birds become as familiar friends. I usually see more Oystercatchers, and curlews in an average day than I do people, and their presence in my life brings me great comfort and security that I never found amongst buildings. The treeless landscape of Shetland lacks dominant verticals to build pictorial compositions around and birds have filled this void. Now instead of a factory chimney I draw the spiralling forms of lapwings dancing in flight and I rejoice at their presence in my life.
In autumn the landscape is filled with migrants adding primary colour to earthen autumn heather and peat. Who knows where they have come from and who knows to where they are going, but when they seek rest in Shetland on their mysterious and mystical journey, I paint them.
