matt harvey art
Portrait paintings, art demonstrations, figurative painting, landscapes
Thoughts about dots and landscape painting
I had to write a brief statement for an upcoming show so thought I would share it here:
The British landscape has always held a deep fascination for me. Living in south west England means I spend a lot of time in the local landscape, especially on Dartmoor, a beautiful landscape in all seasons, and everything is always changing. The main subject of my paintings is this change itself, the depiction of this changing light, and how the landscape can look so different through the seasons, the time of day, and the weather. You can’t paint landscapes in England without painting the weather.
I would like my landscape paintings to be the result of a dialogue between myself and the environment I am in. I feel that any landscape is always alive; changing, growing, and my paintings are the result of a communion I have with the landscape. I try to feel with the landscape and capture some kind of emotion and connection I experience when I am in the landscape.
I paint in a so-called pointillist style where I use small brushmarks or dots to build up the image. I see each dot as a jewel sparkling with life. Each dot is like a full stop and a comma, an exclamation mark and a question mark. All around each dot are others that sparkle like gems in their interrelations. Dots express the beauty and purity of colours, where unchanging in themselves, they appear to behave so differently next to different colours, more beautifully expressing their intrinsic qualities. They are the simplest and purest expression of colour as it is, like musical notes. The dots also unintentionally appear to express rhythms and patterns on the painted surface which reflect rhythms and patterns in nature.
matt harvey art 