An adventure in 21st century romanticism.

A short statement

Acknowledging a debate in landscape art raised by Edmund Burke’s Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful in 1757 I have come to the conclusion lately that I am at least in part a Romanticist.  

The Burkean sublime aesthetic focuses on an emotional response to the astonishing and sometimes terrifying immensity and power of the natural world. 

I walk in my familiar places and establish, fancifully, the making of new landscape imagery in the ideas of Burke. With various drawing approaches and motifs I exaggerate and shape these experiences into invented novel images. The presence of various figures reveal themes and narratives exploring the mission of the artist in the landscape.

Identifying with Casper David Friedrich’s Wanderer (Above a Sea of Mist) as observer and imposter, this artist interprets and portrays his observations in a manner so as to provoke wonder.

The works are mixed media (acrylic ink, etching ink and coloured pencil) with the exception 4 etchings and four digital drawings.