100 x 70 cm | 39 x 27 in
Tags: Forest
'Shade Wood', painting in oil on canvas.
"Walking from Ogmore-by-Sea to St.Donats in the Vale of Glamorgan, I came across Shade Wood shrouded over by an autumn canopy with pockets of sunlight piercing through, onto the woodland floor. I wanted to create explosions of colour and texture in this painting and approached the canvas energetically, flicking and splattering paint generously. I then 'boxed a punch bag' for an hour to let off excess energy and returned to the canvas to bring form to the Madder Lakes and yellow hues of Shade Wood."
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.