‘Saltdean Scenario’ is painted using oil and acrylic on canvas. It is a large painting on an artist’s high quality Windsor and Newton stretcher which is warp resistant. The painting is made using large brushstrokes and the texture of the paint and brush marks are visible on the surface of the canvas.
It is painted using a combination of oil and acrylic paint which gives it extreme vibrancy and shine in some areas. In some areas of the painting the oil pigment is fluorescent which gives intense strong colour.
The paintings for my exhibition ‘In the Air’ have been especially developed for the gallery space within Shoreham Airport’s’ Whispering Gallery’. Shoreham airport in a wonderful Art Deco Grade 11 listed building. The atrium gallery is lit by natural overhead light and the centre of the space is a turquoise atrium with an aeroplane flying across.
The paintings developed in direct response to this space. I have always known the airport as it is local to me and an excellent place to take young children as you can sit right outside near the runway in the café having lunch and watching planes taking off and landing.
I’ve spent a lot of happy afternoons watching planes with my own boys and it struck me as great subject matter. Planes, going and coming, travelling, touching down in new and far flying places, the memories checking in a bag evokes are feeling that I wanted to capture in the work.
I reached out to the airport hoping that they would be open to the idea of me exhibiting in this special space and they were. I spent some time researching the archive at the airport, learning about the stories of early pilots, and considering how the curves and lines of the space and view to beneath would interplay with the work. Eventually I developed a series of ten paintings for this show. Each one is special and each one is unique.
I knew I wanted to paint a Saltdean night scape. I found some old imagery of the lido from when it must have first opened. The way the figures were dressed and how they were interacting was so interesting if you zoomed in right close to the painting. There were a row of nurses with strange hats walking though, and upstairs in the café people sat at table dressed with gingham tablecloths and doors open.
I wanted to play around with a feeling of space an pattern in the painting. To add stars, a bright yellow plane and to make the grass in the distance feel like the moon. To create a feeling of perspective through the painting I’ve added lines like the neat paving stones. They evoke such strong memories for me, rough underfoot with weeds creeping through and warm form the sun.
