Ray Hill

Biography

Statement

Inner Landscapes Series 2007-2010.

Idealised images of the natural world.

Many people have forgotten how to ‘see’. If they do see, what they are seeing is a world of muted colour. This may be in part due to the often overcast skies of our rain-soaked island: days of greyness that sap the colour out of everything. On the days when the atmospheric conditions are right, the sun is bright and the skies are a never-ending glorious blue. This is when nature’s true brilliance of colour fills the senses.

Nature’s sublimely exuberant colour scheme is impossible to reproduce: artists often struggle in vain to capture the essence of nature. All we, as artists, can do is add our own interpretation and form a co-creation to produce an impression of what we have seen externally

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On viewing a painting of nature, some people find it difficult to accept the brilliance of colour, perhaps because their whole being has grown accustomed to a world seen through a grey filter. The grey pervades the very essence of the viewer, eroding their ability to experience fully the dynamic brilliance of nature.

Primarily concerned with colour, I seek to find a way, through the medium of painting, to connect with the landscape and revel in the vastness of our natural world. Using a mixture of techniques, including textured passages, thin blending and glazing of paint as a narrative tool, I aim to create a viewing experience that reveals the joy of colour, using imagery that is calm and peaceful: a reflective, idealised world that can exist in everyone who is willing to engage with it.