Darwin Day Celebration Exhibition - Shrewsbury 2013

The Birthplace of Charles Darwin - 'The Mount', Shrewsbury 2013

I was asked to return to Shrewsbury to produce a body of work retracing the steps of Charles Darwin and his connection with the town in time for the Darwin Day celebrations and exhibition at Millard and Lancaster, starting 12th February 2013.

Darwin's Birthplace is in Shrewsbury in a Georgian property called 'The Mount' which you can reach heading out of town over the Welsh bridge.

Now the building houses the District Valuer and Valuation Office for Shrewsbury. This meant, as can be expected for a functioning office, there was plenty of cars in front of building throughout the midweek whilst I was there painting somewhat killing the nostalgia and appeal of the image. Fortunately I was able to return to finish at the weekend and the low winter sun was casting harsh long shadows across the drive and providing some necessary foreground interest.

I guess I couldn't have expected anything other for late January, but the weather was proving challenging, mainly wind and rain, and so an indoor option was required, which led to the discovery of the spectacular interior of St Mary's.  'Spectacular' mainly for its collection of stained glass, it is said that "no other church in the country has a collection to equal it". The main treasure being the Jesse Window, the main subject of my painting.

The Jesse Window, St Mary's, Shrewsbury 2013

A church interior is not an obvious choice to link to Charles Darwin - whose seems to be the figurehead of scientific discovery ahead of religion, but the building does hold some interesting connections. As part of his education at the nearby Shrewsbury School, Charles Darwin would have been taught in the Trinity School section of this church seen just through the arches on the right of my painting. Also when the top of the spire of St Mary's collapsed in 1894 (the third highest spire in England) a local vicar suggested that the collapse was divine retribution for the decision to erect a statue to Charles Darwin in the town!

Mountford's Charles Darwin Sculpture sat in front of the former Shrewsbury School (painting incomplete when photographed)

The statue the vicar was describing was my next and probably the most obvious subject for the trip, the image of Charles Darwin sat in front of the Shrewsbury boarding school where he was taught, now the Library for the town.

Drizzle and wind made this piece difficult but I am pleased with the image, the drama of looking past his head to the clock tower and the two balancing passages to the left and up the stairs to the castle on the right.

My last painting of the week was a quick study of the church where Darwin was christened - St Chad's in Shrewsbury, again strong winds were playing there part and there was a point where it left the easel and I was chasing it around The Quarry.

Despite this I am pleased with the direction of this piece. Extremely loose and iconic with some bold colour use. The composition is quite interesting, a photographic approach with harsh cropping and a dramatic vantage of the balustrade.

All of the paintings are now on display at Millard and Lancaster, they were complete in time for The Darwin Day celebrations and were featured in a wonderful piece by the Shropshire Star that took comparative photographs of each of the locations ...

http://www.shropshirestar.com/news/2013/02/13/shrewsbury-oil-paintings-celebrate-darwins-birthday/

Before this body of work I have encountered Charles Darwin once before in my painting career when painting a triptych for The Upper House Hotel in Barlaston, the connection to Darwin is explained in my rather lengthy explanation video ...

Oil Painting 44 - Worcester Cathedral Interior

I am especially grateful to the management at Worcester Cathedral for allowing the benefits of my work to overrule the hazards and to grant me access to paint inside the Cathedral.

This interior space is beyond breathtaking, the height, space and unquestionable beauty surround you. Whereas I was struggling to find an angle that satisfied with Oil Painting 43 of the exterior, there was absolutely no problem in locating a vantage point inside the building. This for me, sits alongside some of the best Cathedral Interiors in the North of France. I can now, for the next four days at least, walk to this incredible subject from where I wake, and spend full days responding. The colours change fabulously throughout the day as the sun comes and goes throughout the different stained glass, highlighting the green and golds of the naked cotswold stone. 

I knew instantly this subject would lend itself to my approach and I could produce an individual take with challenging perspectives, gestural brushstrokes whipping the eye around to reflect the enormity and strength of the pillars, and draw out and exaggerate some of the colour subtleties within the stonework in the changing light.

Because there was just so much to go at visually I ended up attempting to contain as much as possible by standing in the central cross of the building in a position where by swinging around I could view down the Nave, both transepts and down towards the Lady Chapel, basically a panorama just short of 360 degrees catching the north, east, south and western stained glass windows in one image. Panning round so far enables you to convincingly wave the horizon and bring in a sense of height. 

This was the main struggle with this painting, wanting to spin right the way round but also knowing the overriding sensation of being in this space, and therefore the main subject, is the gravity defying height. Spinning too much and creating a thin panorama that loses that feeling of looking up would be a failure. The easiest way for me to communicate the height would be flip the panorama on its side, so you simply pan from the floor to the ceiling, which is exactly what I did Oil Painting 42 - Pugin's Gem. This piece is the straight forward symmetrical depiction of the interior of a gothic space and I wasn't surprised to find a photo with nearly the same composition in The Pugin Centre in Cheadle after starting the piece. No, I had got the appeal of the symmetry out of my system with that painting and now wanted to play games with recording right the way around me, looking up and down, even skewing and distorting some aspects to sneak the transept organ in on the right.

It was a compositional struggle that stretched me to the point of not knowing, even after a full days work, if it would read clearly as a representation of space or not. There was a eureka moment when i painted the pattern of the tiles in the central space that helped describe the entire space. All of a sudden the piece then seemed to click with the average viewer, and I gained the approval of the general public which until then had obviously been unsure! This happens a lot with the painting process in public and I often rush to get to the stage where people can read where I am going with the painting, as the activity becomes more enjoyable after that and you do not feel the end to constantly explain yourself. Believe me, a full day of rushed work and doubt, with confused glances from passers by, is a long time!

Gradually though the piece developed and the community of the Cathedral became warmer and warmer to having a painter in with them. I thoroughly enjoyed my time in the Cathedral, met some wonderful people, and would love the opportunity to spend more time there. A residency either with the Cathedral or the local school would be ideal where I could have more time  to explore spacial representations in this the most breathtaking of interiors. This is something I shall certainly be pursuing once I have finished dragging this 16 tonne tub around the country.

Oil Painting 43 - Worcester Cathedral

Our entrance into Birmingham was quite stressful, however the stay in the centre as I have mentioned already, and the exit we took were anything but. The canal passage past the mailbox continues, accompanied by a railway line, tree lined, surrounded by leafy Edgbaston, the Botanical Gardens and the attractive campus of Birmingham University. By the end of this stretch and then with the interest of Cadbury World, the canal was entering the first of the big three tunnels on the Birmingham and Worcester Canal and urban living is once again left behind replaced by rural Worcestershire. 

Leaving Brum means The Great Divide has now been crossed, we have left the Northern Monkeys behind and are now Southern Softies. I can feel the increased temperatures, wealth and arrogance washing over me but before I can get too comfortable in my new role snubbing the north, I am brought down to earth with a real bummer of a stretch of locks. The longest flight in the country it turns out, 50 something to Worcester in total and a particularly nasty stretch of 37 in just 4 miles at Tardebigge. Thats over 9 a mile. Luckily Stoke City holding Arsenal to a draw on BBC5Live got me through it (I have not completely abandoned my roots).

 

Eventually we pull up in Worcester, a small city dominated by an almighty Cathedral. My home city of Stoke on Trent has a much bigger population although it is a relatively new city (a federation of six squabbling towns 100 years ago) and thus doesn't have one of these enormous religious buildings dominating the skyline. It has plenty of impressive church spires and towers and even a new domed mosque but nothing on the scale of Worcester Cathedral. Nearly 1000 years old it still has the intimidating, awe-inspiring affect it's architects would have wished, and there is something utterly timeless about mooring up our floating home within ear shot of the bells tolling each hour.

Right then, where to paint it from? The iconic view of Worcester contains the Cathedral, and there seems to be one main vantage point, which is across the other side of the River Severn with a bit of cricket pitch and the arched river bridge in shot. *yawn*

I am paranoid enough about my paintings on this project becoming picture-postcard-like without consciously painting THE view of Worcester, that seems to be everywhere in the towns promotion. So out of stubbornness as much as anything, I defiantly stick to the high street side and try to get a view between the trees, this pushes me closer to the entrance and the visitors to the Cathedral so I feel I am having more of a conversation with the building, the close proximity allowing a more dramatic perspective and sense of scale, with the stonework filling the composition. The obvious influence here is the Rouen Cathedral frontage work of Claude Monet, although Dennis Creffield's expressive Cathedral representations have had a lasting impact after seeing him talk at The Princes Drawing School. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Creffield

Claude Monet's various representations of the portal of Rouen Cathedral

Dennis Creffield - Gloucester Cathedral I

We were having some rare and much appreciated sunshine and the tracking light source picking out the decorative stonework was unveiling some glorious unexpected colour combinations. Thoughts of Monet's Rouen Cathedral work and having the time to spend long periods of time with a constant subject is having appeal at this point in the midst of this stop start journey around the country, seeing so much but having limited time and feeling the pressure to keep moving.

Whilst working I was approached by a artist called Conrad (never gave surname) and we had a good constructive chat through where I was going with the piece. I think he approved. He voiced some great past artists who had similar areas of interest, particularally with the fracturing of this composition into a diamond format. The artists he named -

Lionel Feineger

Lionel Feinenger

Robert Delaunay

On the 2nd out of 3 days painting this piece there was a Graduation Ceremony

This piece, and producing it alongside the Entrance was also consciously a demonstration piece to the management team of the Cathedral to try and gain access to paint the spectacular interior...