Pond Life: Thinking of Ann Southam, 2013
Vanishing Point, 2013
Marco’s Tree, 2013
A Silent Refrain, 2013
From the Far Shore, 2013
The Great Reach, 2013
The Blue Pools, 2013
Perspective, 2013
A Dance of Yellow and Blue, 2013
The images in Stephen Hutchings new paintings are derived from a sketching trip near the lower Fraser River during the time of its unprecedented flooding in May 2012. Aptly named Ouest, the beauty of this lush and idyllic region of the West Coast mixed with the vulnerability of the countryside, due to the swollen river, gave Hutchings the perfect mix to explore the ongoing dualities of light and dark; warm and cool; hidden and revealed. Landscape becomes a veil or a curtain that is strung out before us, shaping our views of the world, filling our perceptions with a metaphysical dialectic.
Quantum Landscape, 2012
Der Bote (the Messanger), 2011
Songs of Light and Shade, 2011
Symphony 3 (of Sorrowful Songs), 2011
CV11-X, Eternal Dance, 2011
CV11-X, Lost Horizon, 2011
CV11-X, The Idea of a Line, 2011
CV11-X, Winter Fugue, 2011
In the early 1820's John Constable, the English landscape painter, painted a series of oil and watercolour sketches of clouds. His goal was to create an accurate record of the different shapes and styles of clouds, and to this end, the sketches were accompanied by detailed notes of the time, the place, the movement of the clouds, the nature of the weather, and so on. He was primarily interested in stormy skies and his intention was to inject greater emotive states into his landscapes.
Constable Variations take their lead from these cloud studies and explore the emotive and the ineffable aspect of cloud formations. Colour bars on the sides of the paintings provide keys to the hues and tones found in the work. The individual works in the series are titled with tempo notations (commonly used in classical music scores) that indicate both the movement and temporality of the cloud image.
Hedge Drawing #52, 1995
Bush Drawings, 1994
Bush Drawing #44, 1998
Bush Drawing #32, 1995
Bush Drawing #41, 1996
Bush Drawing #38, 1995
Bush Drawing #33, 1994
The drawings are invented in the studio, when I sit down with pencil and paper and no thought in mind. The image springs from the first spontaneous mark I make on the white surface of the paper, breaking the pure calm of the space. A house appears, or a bush, or a leaf, and I proceed as the image dictates, darkening the shadows to pure black, letting the light of the paper shine through.
Bushes
The bush stands alone against the world, as a singular statement of individual survival. It is not heroic; it is not powerful. It is not even unique. It just continues to be there, to survive, to remain standing. Resolute.
Leaf and Flower Drawings, 1998
Flower Drawing #56, 1994
Flower Drawing #55, 1996
Leaf Drawing #69, 1998
Leaf Drawing #68, 1998
Leaf Drawing #63, 1998
Leaf Drawing #60, 1998
Leaf Drawing #70, 1995
Leaf Drawing #72, 1995
Leaf Drawing (Two leaves) #71, 1998
Leaf Drawing #65, 1998
Leaf Drawing #59, 1998
Leaf Drawing #59, 1998
Leaf Drawing #62, 1998
Leaf Drawing #61, 1998
Leaf Drawing #66, 1997
The drawings are invented in the studio, when I sit down with pencil and paper and no thought in mind. The image springs from the first spontaneous mark I make on the white surface of the paper, breaking the pure calm of the space. A house appears, or a bush, or a leaf, and I proceed as the image dictates, darkening the shadows to pure black, letting the light of the paper shine through.
Leaves
Leaves flutter across the empty surface of the paper, as if caught in a burst of wind; they twist and turn on their branches. The space around them is streaked and marked with their energy. As a whole, each drawing speaks of a world that exists above the earth-borne reality of our daily existence.
House Drawings, 1997
House Drawing #46, 1997
House Drawing #51, 1997
House Drawing #49, 1997
The drawings are invented in the studio, when I sit down with pencil and paper and no thought in mind. The image springs from the first spontaneous mark I make on the white surface of the paper, breaking the pure calm of the space. A house appears, or a bush, or a leaf, and I proceed as the image dictates, darkening the shadows to pure black, letting the light of the paper shine through.
Houses
The human energy of the interior shines through the windows, making the hulking forms not just into houses but into homes, into shelters from the encroaching dark. Though the dark spaces and external shapes are foreboding, the light streaming from the inside speaks of hope and comfort.
Bush Suite One (b), 2000
Bush Suite One (d), 2000
Bush Suite Set Two (A), 2000
Bush Suite Set Two (B), 2000
Bush Suite Set Two (C), 2000
Bush Suite Set Two (D), 2000
The bush or tree image is a recurring image and icon in my work, which comes from my academic background studies of biology, literature and fine art, and my graduate degree in Art History. I utilize the images of bushes and trees to comment on our relationship with us and with society in general, revisiting the pastoral and the romantic concept of landscape within a contemporary frame of reference. On one level, the bushes can be seen as self-portraits, dealing with issues of identity and survival. For my charcoal and oiil based works, the images start as miniature graphite drawings or more recently photographs taken on sketching trips in Canada and Europe. Re-created in my studio, my work then comes out of a sense of an "internal landscape." The chin colle etcihngs, created in collaboration with Master Printer and friend Stu Oxley in 2000, have an intential abstract quality. The glow of light framing the movement of a group or single “portrait” borrows from both the natural silouhette created around forms at sunset and the use of the halo in medieval and renaissaunce paintings that symbolizes the glow of the soul or internal light.
Tree, Messiaen Quartet #4, 2012
Hill, 2009
Branch, Messiaen Quartet #6, 2012
Branch, Messiaen Quartet #6, 2012
Grove, Messiaen Quartet #7, 2012
Landscapes for the end of Time examines ideas of temporality, permanence, and eternity. Although we experience time as a continuous presence, to suggest that there is an end of time brings up questions concerning the nature of our knowledge. Can the life span of an individual be reconciled with the idea of eternity, or of an existence beyond the constraints of time? Can a sense of place that is realized through a specific landscape effectively suggest the universal.
The Vortex, 2012
The Tower, 2012
The Gathering Storm Oct. 29, 2012
Sturm und Drang, 2012
Storm Fugue, 2012
Sea Symphony, 2012
Rain Curtain, 2012
In Harm's Way, 2012
Fury is a suite of paintings that portray the terrible beauty of celestial storm clouds. Although they find their source in newsreel and internet depictions of real storms , the paintings extend these images into metaphors that express the fears and terrors of contemporary life. Life today, in our western world, seem to exist on a thin edge between balance and chaos, between comfort and disaster. the Fury paintings of menacing skies and furious clouds are as beautiful as they are portentous.
The English landscape painter, John Constable, made watercolor and charcoal sketches of imposing skies near his rural home near Suffolk in order to understand how to increase the drama and emotional tension in his work. His famous painting, The Hay Wain, portrays a gentile, rural scene that takes it ominous cue from the treating clouds that fill the sky above.