Home:- John Sturgess - Paintings,
drawings and prints.
From the early 1960's, evocation and evocative non-descriptive images have
deeply interested me. A visual image, evocative of experience or one that
makes reference to something, is mysterious and compelling to me.
'Change' was always a constant theme in my work and from this time ideas like
the four seasons interested me; this idea of change still lies behind some
of my work today. Landscape and its numerous diverse qualities have always
been a major and underlying influence in my work, particularly in terms of
distilling from it certain qualities such as lyricism, meditativeness and
distinct moods, atmospheres and spaces. The idea of the landscape always being
basically the same yet constantly in a visual state of flux is an theme that
remains fundamental to the 'Field' series of paintings.
Equally, the historical development of music through its constantly developing
and changing concepts has played an important role in my work. In 'modern'
times, the ideas of composers such as Reich, Riley and Adams with their paradoxical
ideas of repetition and change have also influenced my thinking.
Along with these ideas of change, landscape and music, ancient cultures were
my other main influence, especially in my earlier works. Several series of
watercolour paintings derived from this area of study, i.e. a 'hieratic figure
series', a series of camps etc. (not included in this catalogue).
I believe a painting to have its own independent language and although the
'Field' series might be thought to be abstract, in fact all my work comes
from direct external experience. The 'Field' series, for example, with its
ambiguous title, includes various 'incidents' in the painting; all of which
are distilled from, and evocative of, actual landscape experiences. Also,
the 'En Fête' series is derived from direct experience and is concerned
with visual and audio chaos, mesmerism, and cacophony. The paintings in the
'Music series' are engendered by actual pieces heard or can be evocative of
other direct experiences such as cityscapes or architecture.
The nature of my work as a painter has been to take a simple, basic, geometric
structure, devoid of personal connotations yet full of interpretive potential;
and to use all the ideas, at every level to create, solely through the use
of colour, an experiment into what the 'language' is capable of carrying in
terms of content and context .
Gallery :-
View a collection of John's paintings,
browse through the virtual Gallery...
Biography:-
Read about John's Education, Background and Exhibitions...
Links:-
View a list of links where you can navigate to websites about some of John's
favourite artists and influences...
