Bending Light Atop of St. Johns Hill

Peter Kettle

70 x 70 cm | 27 x 27 in


Tags: Flower, Dark


'Bending Light Atop of St. Johns Hill', original painting in oil on canvas. "The idea behind this painting - and a lot of my works - is to not compose and arrange the composition into a static representation, but thrust the viewer into an expressive and pictorial distance. Catching the light atop of the hill and searing a moment onto the canvas is a dazzling concept. The landscapes I have chosen are of those fully experienced and understood with at times indescribable subjectivity. Adopting a palette of clay and oil to harness this image is a medium I find comfortable in order to sculpt the mood. A landscape can be construed as seeing visual melodies. Paying particular attention to the fragmented accents in the sky and the billowing giants below is an impression I strive to convey."


Sold


Peter Kettle

See inside the studio

Kettle’s work has the surfaces of well-worn exterior walls, buffeted and corroded with the appearance of having withstood the effects of time and weather – a technique that gives his work an enlivening combination of stoicism and nostalgia.

If one glanced at Kettle’s work for a matter of seconds, it might seem abstract. Quickly, however, a landscape unfolds. A deep green often streaks across the top of the canvas. The implication is the ocean or a night sky, either seems applicable. Look further and we might detect a sort of dance. Each painting has its own internal rhythm. Paint is smeared across the canvas, the trace of a palette knife or similar instrument visible. Drips, drags and smears give the painting body. No wonder Kettle has titled his recent paintings as a sequence of sea shanties. The paintings act as placeholders for songs, for shanties. Human bodies are absent and the paintings are stronger for it; they embody the aftermath of the party, the event, the song. Here, we might draw a comparison with Giorgio De Chirico’s cities, made all the stranger by the lack of human presence. And lastly, a note on Kettle himself. A keen mountaineer and traveller, his artist photo depicts him setting out camping equipment on a snowy mountain. We see a backpack and beside it, three small packages in red, yellow and green. Look at the paintings and these three colours clustered together are a constant. Another trace of human activity, in this case, likely Kettle himself.


More original works by Peter Kettle


You may also like these

Bending Light Atop of St. Johns Hill by Peter Kettle

£450.00