South to Calabria Series (1999)

Real journeys I take are used in the studio as metaphors for mapping the canvas.

The South to Calabria Series came from journeys travelling south from Tuscany to Calabria. It's a journey I've made many times, stopping to explore and absorb the character and atmosphere of  landscape and cities on the journey.

Impetus to begin the paintings came from a book I found in a second hand bookshop. The book's title is South To Calabria written by Leslie Gardiner and published by William Blackwood Edinburgh & London 1968. 

Imagined as well as real journeys form part of my creative resource. I also use historical, cultural, geological and scientific themes; each painting or artwork has a subtext derived from these interests.  In my paintings, I see time as slowed, space both full and empty and if the mapping is not the territory, it is a contemplative space, similar to a journeying transition from place to place that creates a different reality.