About the Work - 'Place is the Key'

The connection between Andrew’s painting and his career centres on the theory of ‘place’. This, he explains, can be summarised as “the identification and understanding of a place, its local traditions, character and phenomena, and in architecture, is the positive designing of buildings for that place…and an aversion to those which deny or take little account of the importance of the place in which they sit. Understanding this theory has made me think about ‘place’ in a different way and I construct my paintings with this in mind, choosing particular media and techniques to suit the subject… a person’s experience of a particular place can also be very personal, something which I hope my interpretations reflect”

During a prolonged architectural project based on Monk Haven and Sandy Haven, Andrew studied the work of Graham Sutherland (1903-1980) researching his paintings and writings held in the archives of the National Museum in Cardiff. Sutherland describes his appreciation and understanding of Pembrokeshire, referring to ‘encounters’ with the landscape, those magical juxtapositions which set up a creative spark. “It was the combination of reading Sutherland and studying one area in depth that really helped me understand how a landscape was put together.” It also led to some montages, composite images that speak of a place’s history as well as its current condition.

Andrew appreciates the work of Andy Goldsworthy and Richard Long, British land artists who work directly in the landscape with natural and found materials - as ephemeral as leaves or durable as granite. Their art embodies ‘place’, drawing out the character of the environment from which it comes, with the inevitable processes of decay and growth changing it over time just as a building might become covered with ivy or beaten down by the weather.

Several of Long’s works were based on walks he made, consisting of photographs and maps of the land he’d walked over, a kind of summary of the experience using written and visual material.
Another influence of Andrew’s is Lyonel Feininger (1871-1956), one of the leading artists of the German Bauhaus, whose paintings synthesized art, science and technology, with architecture being one of Feininger’s main themes.
Andrew’s painting method involves “rough sketchy work to clarify ideas as preparation for paintings. People may be included but are never the focus: place is the key thing.” He also takes photographs, “taken with the intention to paint but not, at this stage specific in terms of composition.” On the computer he may crop, join or distort the photos to create an image that pleases him and has a better fit with his memories and feelings about the place. He may even draw over a photograph to simplify the structures of land shapes in his mind.

Drawing then in pencil on canvas or paper, Andrew makes a tonal representation at full size, using this to produce a painting in shades of Payne’s grey, Prussian blue and white. He likes to be completely satisfied with the tonal range before committing himself to colour. “This overpainting may seem absurd but it is essential to me to understand what I’m painting. I have to do a great deal of drawing in my job, to be analytic, to know how underlying materials work in both natural landscapes and manmade structures. I firmly believe whoever said, ‘To draw is to understand’: it helps me see the way things work in the world and in the painting.”

“I have a mental impression of what I want early on and later, whilst painting, may lose it and need to persist until I can achieve something that satisfies that early ideal.” Andrew doesn’t actually abandon a painting but may put it away for a while before returning to it afresh. “I believe there’s a solution somewhere and I’ve just got to persevere to find it.” This may include repainting more than once, gradually refining the work until the only decisions left are about the finishing touches.

Andrew tends to sit to draw and stand at the easel to paint, often working for 10 to 12 hours but breaking every couple of hours or so to leave the work. “Standing up close can be tiring and lead to over-concentration on a small area, creating imbalances.” Acrylic is his preferred medium, versatile in that it can be used in thin washes or impasto, and Andrew uses a limited number of colours to mix many more.”

“I enjoy the process of drawing and feel confident – I also enjoy the final stages of a painting…but in between the first and the last is a process of learning which can be frustrating and tentative, experimental and teetering in and out of balance.”

Fitting in with place theory Andrew’s inclination is to use a particular medium and style to suit a subject: detailed beach studies are spattered to give the texture and colours of sand; for mountainous scenes the ruggedness of rocks is achieved by using paint thickly applied with a palette knife, the marks left obvious; in his street scenes he uses a range of mixed media, adding pastels for added texture and inks for delineation.

Article by Margaret Welsh, Art Matters Gallery, Tenby, May 2007
As printied in Pembrokeshire Life, July 2007