Implicitus Silvis, mixed media on cardboard, c. 140 x 132 cms. 2025 Earlier this year I began clarting* together cardboard packaging that - in the way of it nowadays - there’s plenty of in this house.  I had decided to push the Hortus Conclusus paintings into something more rural in conception and more provisional in construction.  Partly at the behest of the…

Bouziès Boats...by John Hoyland Following on from my last post something a little lighter (and back to painting) from my recent jolly to the East Coast. We were staying in a lovely property nestled deep in the Suffolk countryside (roughly half way from Framlingham to Saxmundham) and our bedroom had a better class of artwork (or image thereof) than is often the case.

Unless you have stumbled across this by accident you expect me to ramble on about painting but today I need to rant...and whilst it connects to the subject, feel free to ignore! Derby's Cavendish Building reported cost £75 million I recently spent some time listening to a report on job losses at a Midlands University (it will remain unnamed).  Quite a few others also seem to be at it. 

Pleasant Country Aspect no. 40 Drayton oil on canvas board 30 x 40 cm. 2025 If you're a regular reader you'll know about the ongoing project that was called The Heart Of Rural England. This began in 2009 with From The Earth Wealth, the making of a 30 x 40 cm. painting for each place recorded in the North West Leicestershire district handbook that resulted in the exhibition at the…

back to Brisons...such a privilege. For the past few days I've been lucky enough to be having this view, across the Atlantic towards the Americas. That said we'd work to do - the upshot of which is that should you have £60/70k down the back of the sofa we would be grateful if you could send it our way! We need to insulate and update the place to future proof it for the many professional creatives we hope to give the opportunity of experiencing this exact inspirational location.

Another trip to The Wireworks Project where Ivan Smith mounts a substantial, richly layered exhibition that makes the most of the cavernous shed’s undoubted qualities.  Indeed the energy and ingenuity required to dominate this space (virtually the only one of its size in the region) is a challenge to any artist.  The fact that Ivan is resident here (along with his sparring partner…

The piece above might just be finished...or perhaps not. In the 'normal' run of things (as regards this latest escapade) the cobbled together card with its timber support and its first household gloss brushwork would dry and then go off to the studio for innumerable alterations and additions. But something suggested that the rapid and tbh 'unthinking' first stage could be it.

Market Harborough, Pleasant Country Aspect 30 x 40 cm. oil on canvas 2025 Or so the old maxim goes... It's certain that the Harborough leg of The Heart Of Rural England project (blog entries passim) has been grinding slow. My pal Simon dates it very accurately (by the photo record) but it certainly started ahead of COVID, thus back in 2020 or 19.

It's been a while...but I'm not at all apologetic at taking time out to visit the Outer Hebrides for a summer holiday. And whilst week one was variable Scottish weather (often wet & windy) week two delivered for the most part very hot sunny days. Evidence below (Garry beach)... So back home and back to the studio. Long time observers will know that several very distinct projects continue to goad and spur me on.

Krazy Keyser Korner Geezer, 30 x 30 cm. acrylic on board 2025 So this modest little picture is one of a small number of oddities that pay homage to works that have had a profound influence on my ideas of painting. Sometimes they are effectively simple transcriptions, on other occasions very loose variants of the original. Here I am recalling my second encounter with…

The earliest map coloured in during a school trip to Switzerland in 1968 (age 16) I don't know when I started making pictures by colouring maps in but it must've been nearly 57 years ago!  I don't suppose there are very many from those early years but as time went by and particularly from the 1980s onwards I've made many.  I tend to revert to doing so when I'm either bereft of new ideas or just in a lull in the production of other works.

Merlyn Evans, Tyronnopolis, 1939, oil on canvas There's a terrific painting by Merlyn Evans in a terrific exhibition at The Hepworth currently. Am I alone in being slightly chilled at its date of gestation? It suggests a world in chaos...a base of some solidity (ground and sky in a sensible relation to the observer) but everything in unstable and crazy conversations and behaviours.

The Spring Equinox as seen in Barnsley Barnsley that is. It’s taken a while (very nearly half a century in my case!) to get there. Mind my partner-in-crime Simon and myself only took it into our heads to visit the place and particularly the Cooper Art Gallery about four or five months back. Events just got in the way. Still quite a time to get around to it.

Hortus Ultra Villum, oil on canvas, 120 x 100 cms. 2025 Regular readers will know it is many years since I was daft enough to enter competitions with a fee attached. But the old cliche proves true again...yes I've podded out £30 to enter the John Moores! I guess its the lure of the major painting show coupled with the fact that I've had a year or so of making 'proper' pictures again.

Caution artist at work making a photograph (stage1) Out three days in a row...and I'll admit to needing some 'down time'. Good day last Wednesday with family visiting the Djanogly and Conrad Shawcross's thoughtful and powerful installations, followed by the penultimate Harborough trip on Thursday and a long day Friday albeit in great company (again, the previous day having been with the ever entertaining…

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