Looking back to the last blog posting which was July 2024 I realise that I haven’t kept up to date with any progress that I may have made in the intervening months.

At that time of writing, I had announced that ‘ I have decided to make a complete change of approach to my work’ and this was to state that ongoing work will be more ‘abstract’ in content and will be a departure from previous more representational output.

Now nearly 18 months on, I want to consider carefully if I have reached that goal. In some ways yes, there is a definite shift to the use of the overworked word ‘abstract’ which is certainly present in most of my current paintings. I feel that there is still a long way to go, and that elusive goal is still not fully achieved.

What then needs to progress further? Each new painting I undertake takes a distinct movement in one direction using methods used in previous work, and this is not what I need to rely upon. I do need to adopt a ‘new way of seeing’ when starting a new subject and find a way to translate that new visual interpretation into a fresh artwork.

I listen to music a lot when I am in the studio, and somehow this forms another ‘presence’ that is there but is not part of the painting process. Likewise, I am very open to what I listen to, usually classical, although I do enjoy the freedom of jazz.

I think there is an analogy between the structure of jazz music and the ‘new way of seeing’ in painting that I am interested in achieving. Particularly if you hear an improvised version of a standard tune that you are familiar with in its original version, and you know the tune and understand the melody, but then hear a jazz version of the same piece which follows the melody but gives something more than the original music. Perhaps using dissonant notes or repetitive phrases or a mix of instruments that works together to give it another dimension.

I have used the ’New Work’ page on my website to show a perceptible change in output during 2024, and I hope that in the year to come this goal of achieving this ’new way of seeing’ becomes more and more apparent. One bight encouragement from the past year that confirms to me that this change of work has achieved some merit was a painting which captured the ‘Abstract ‘ quality was accepted for showing in the Winter Exhibition of the Royal Institute of Painters in Oils.