As you can see, I'm happy to be selected from among over 2,000 submissions for the RWS Contemporary Watercolour Exhibition. Just as someone was taking my photo at the private view last week, they asked "Is that your red dot?" With my back to the painting, I hadn't seen the red dot going up.
Landscript 1 fuses observed and remembered visual cues, with a mark-making and painting process that utilises the dots and dashes of lichen on tree trunks, patterns of falling leaves, a track at the left and the distant hillside at the top. It's a synthesis of elements seen quickly but repeatedly while I'm out running on Shotover Hill, moving alternately through deep shade and pools of light. I enjoy the ancient resonances - the woods were once once a haunt for highway men, once royal hunting forest, and the hillside shows Bronze Age, Iron age, and Roman usage.
Many thanks to the Royal Watercolour Society for the opportunity. The exhibition shows a wide range of approaches in water-based media, including contemporary observational and figurative work, and more abstract, graphic, and conceptual painting. The exhibition is on from 3rd - 15th March 2017, at Bankside Gallery, London.