Sarah Blockley
Acrylic on board
61cm x 46cm
Titles: Wild Bathing | Twilight Reflections
“I seek to recreate the truth of nature by making my own song about it.”
– Ivon Hitchens (1893-1979)
Hitchens immersed himself in nature, often comparing his landscape paintings to music, feeling that his canvases should be read like a musical score, from left to right. He wrote about the ‘visual sound’ of his images, declaring that his pictures are “painted to be ‘listened’ to” and that“There must be organic movement” – art must be made with “visual directions”.
Somewhere between reality and fantasy, the paintings create a multi-layered environment evoking escape / solitude / selfcare and immersion in nature. During the Covid pandemic, having an outside was a huge luxury to some providing an escape, a place of freedom from the unprecedented restrictions and rules imposed upon us. By enlarging the leaves, the figure becomes surrounded by nature with colours and brushstrokes creating a flowing, lyrical atmosphere.
I would like to focus on figure studies; exploring abstracting the landscape using mark making and mixed media; and making printed papers to collage.
“The expressive figure drawing module really captured my interest in figurative work. The mark making and print making modules have given me a whole new range of tools to use in my work along with a better understanding of colour and composition, gained from the landscape and colour workshops.”