Continued...

About March 1995 I came to a halt.

I had been working on 'Praha' which I could not resolve. Since revisiting that long hidden painting I find things in it I now understand.

At the end of the year I made some small drawings based on parts of the engine of my Tatra car which I was then rebuilding. They were inconsequential but broke the hiatus and led to 'Malé Mapy Prahy'. These were based on an old map of Prague and my memories of places I had visited. I always intended that they should be exhibited together and be in part transparent and that the map would always remain useable as a map.

'Malé Mapy Prahy' had introduced the third dimension into my paintings. Subsequently many paintings would now be painted on layers. To help in working out the relationships between the layers I started to use a computer. This was to lead to working solely on a computer for 4 years, using its ability to rotate, reflect, transform and resize the many elements in a painting. I soon discovered I need a very powerful computer to keep up with my demands! In 2004 it would take 25 minutes to commit changes to memory; my current monster can do similar tasks within a minute.

The Vodnany sequence was an attempt to re-inhabit the traditional canvas seen as a discrete object within a frame, a conscious echo of the smaller landscapes of Poussin. (I had been painting landscapes outside for the previous 3 years.)

(return)or you can continue with some notes about specific paintings:-

Continue...

Malé Mapy Prahy.

Paintings based on an old map of Prague, that could always be reused as a map, if the occasion arrived. Each one is of an area I have visited.

Studies in counterpoint.

This is number 13 from this long running sequence which has now stopped at 14, but possibly may continue.

Little bears.

The first of this group was a tribute to a well known Prague pub "U Medvidku" hence calling the set of 28 small paintings Ursus Minor or as here Little Bear Small Mechanisms / Light Canon. Are all based on number sequences taken from English Bell ringing. The second series (Light canon) has more emphasis on a third dimension

Boxes / Loving & Laughter.

Happy pieces, involving lots of cutting and glueing.

Roith's Bank.

Half way up Wenceslas Square is an inscrutable building that has always been a bank, a powerhouse of the First Republic, the Nazi Period, Communism and now Gangster Capitalism; Through all this it just sails on. My title does honour to its little known architect.

Spring-Malá Strana / From Hradchany.

Using similar techniques to "Roith's Bank" but these are upbeat paintings, The second one is a reference to a 1930's Czech Film in which a tour guide describes the view to doubly uncomprehending Japanese, smog obscures the view and the czech language obscures the description!

Out of Vienna.

A large group all byproducts of my exploration of the computer which allowed me to draw and paint in many more related layers than had previously been possible.

Rooms.

The full title of this one is "Berlin bar with Loos, Schoenberg & Kokoshka 1927" This group of pieces all are based on rooms in Central Europe and all incorporate a photograph or memory of a photograph. Some of this group were done with a computer some not, but I doubt if you can tell which are which.

Child's Play.

Exuberant paintings that were all developed on the computer.

Můj Nejkrásnĕjší dům.

The title means" My most beautiful house" and commemorate a week I was allowed to draw undisturbed on my own in Adolf Loss's masterpiece the Villa Mueller in Prague.

Vodnany Series.

John of Nepomuk• is on the bridge and just to the side of my view. He faces the crucifixion as well as a plethora of traffic signs. A patron saint of the Czechs and a protector from the floods that we witnessed. As an outsider I also face a plethora of cultural signs I cannot understand: this was the starting point for these paintings.
• A national saint of the Czech Republic, who was drowned in the Vltava river at the behest of Wenceslaus, King of Bohemia. Later accounts state that he was the confessor of the queen of Bohemia and refused to divulge the secrets of the confessional. On the basis of this account, John of Nepomuk is considered the first martyr of the Seal of the Confessional.

Slicing Utopia.

The words were written by my Czech friend and poet Lubos Vins.

Ossias for dancing.

I am still at work on this group which started as a wedding gift for friends. the first effort was a good painting but not suitable as the gift so I made a different version (i.e. an ossia) It is growing into a large group of paintings!

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