Snowdonia Landscape Study 2 - On Paper

Peter Kettle

61 x 43 cm | 24 x 16 in


Subject: Landscapes & Nature
Tags: Line, Gestural


Original painting in oil on paper.

"The landscapes of Wales are a perpetual spur for my love of painting. Being able to harness the hostility of the wild together with the peace of the water's edge is a duality I strive to capture in my work. The process is a marriage between the fleeting nuances and the rooted impression of a space experienced, re-visited and conceived in relation to the landscape. These Landscape studies have been created by abstracting the shape and line of the landscape and using bold, tonal gestures to translate the dramatic change of light onto paper. Within the landscape, I constantly search for the forms, colours and rhythms that match my inner conception. I use various tools, (paint brush, sticks of different sizes and palette knifes) to work with, and judging the feel and contour of the landscape are paramount in these studies. Often I take the line up into the sky to imagine the line of the wind, as well as the landscape below."


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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.


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Snowdonia Landscape Study 2 - On Paper by Peter Kettle

£450.00