100 x 70 cm | 39 x 27 in
Tags: Mystical, Green, Summer, Fresh
'Pitcot Pool', painting in oil on canvas.
"An idyllic spot in the Vale of Glamorgan flourishing with wildlife. I returned back to this spot day after day to sketch different angles and rework the canvas, trying to capture the multitude of colours surrounding Pitcot Pool (also known as Pwll Y Mer) and celebrate the environment. The wind coming up from over the Bristol Channel sways the reeds and trees around the pond giving a vigorous elemental combination. Although considered a quiet and placid spot the sea-weather invigorates Pwll Y Mer with vitality."
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.