Peter Colquhoun

Artist’s Statement

The paintings I have made cover a range of subjects. Urban and rural landscapes, still life, figure and portrait —among others,
but the majority of work that I have done has been with landscape.

These are usually executed in oil, on site and much of the time from start to finish. Sometimes a preliminary drawing is needed, either on a separate piece of paper or on the canvas itself. The duration of work on any given piece can vary from a couple of hours to a couple of months.

I am interested in working tonally. That is to say not merely through color as it is found squeezed fresh from a tube but mixed and applied to the extent that it begins to approach the marvel of color as is observed in nature.
More often than not, these notes are un-nameable.

Choice of subject is often a complex affair. How much and in what way does that particular subject attract me and in what way can I respond in paint that has any meaning to me or anyone else? This is not always clear to me, but if I sense that there is something there that I absolutely need to get after that could at least, constitute a start, I will plunge in. And if I cannot get excited about what I have selected, I might as well stop right there and move on to something else or approach it in a different way.

Through out the process, I am making a painting that abstracts from nature and takes on a space and place of its own. But the final product, if I have done my job right, is not so much a “finished” piece but a piece that bears within it the traces of its own making. To me, none of them are ever truly finished even if those compositions that have been thoroughly worked out and pushed quite far.  For me it is always the viewer who completes it. The primary concern is to maintain the act of seeing through grappling with these subjects.

As far as influences or styles go, “being alive and awake” rank high on my list.

Please contact the gallery for available works and additional information.
whitneygallery@msn.com
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