The work in this small post follow a previous body of work that focused on empty pools. The imagery of abandonment and forgotten and ruined spaces continued to unfold through different locations and signifiers. What follows are the places left behind.

In the early 1970’s David Hockney produced a group of swimming pool paintings of Southern California. The pictures were some of the finest icons of the age, brimming with the confidence of a material world. The mechanical application of paint, the bright colours, their flatness , but particularly the symbolism inherent in the pieces have always impressed me. The pools spoke of enjoyment, liberalism, capitalism, and an age of leisure.

The landscapes I have been working on operate on the other end of the ideological continuum. When ruling ideologies have proven bankrupt my paintings of abandoned, destroyed, and decaying artifices are emblematic of the end of this millennia. The images mostly derived from photos taken in travels to Asia and elsewhere tell a tale of consumption overwhelmed by events. In contrast to shiny slick surfaces, paint runs and dribbles, in the place of clearly delineated forms the images deconstruct and break apart. Yet they are not traditional landscapes because hard lines and mechanical patterns are still very evident of an urban sensibility.

Recently I became more fascinated by destroyed edifices. This picture was of particular interest. The stairs go up to nothing and then the edge of the structure drops off with only a distant view of nothing for the audience. In this sense waiting and ending seems very much Beckett. These theoretical suggestions are heightened through the running paint, a layered surface that is in turn broken and revealed.

The confidence of man-made objects gives way to the possibility of the environment reclaiming itself. If these paintings have any optimism it is that nature will grow through our best attempts to force the wilderness to adapt to us. The parade grounds are vacant, the pools empty, and the condos with the name of what they covered are being re-absorbed.

An example the living sense of abandonment is travelling Greece after the financial crisis it experienced in 2011. Scattered around the landscape are half completed projects, abandoned in the wake of the economic catastrophe the country experienced.

Where in Greece the memory of the challenge of recent history are everywhere to be seen in Germany memory is in the process of being erased. Everywhere the former DDR is being forgotten and when it is remembered it serves the narrative of the new Germany.

“Condo” oil and plaster on linen   52 x 40″

“Pool #1(Si Lanka)” oil and plaster on linen  52 x 40″

“Room”  oil and plaster on linen  52 x 40″

“End Game” oil and plaster on linen  52 x 40″

“Parade Ground” etching 24 x 18″

Olympic stadium (Montreal) etching 24 x 18″

“STASI remains” etching 24 x 18″

STASI stairs” oil and plaster on linen 60 x 48″

“Condo” etching 24 x 18″

“Pool #2 (Chernobyl)” etching 24 x 18″