South Holderness & the river bank - Art Exhibition

In John's own words:

"My work is centred on the agricultural landscape of the East Riding and the north bank of the Humber. I work with the landscape as subject matter because I like to be outside and in the landscape—a landscape to which I have a strong attachment. I do not try to produce an accurate representation of the landscape, rather my work is about being in the landscape. The drawings and paintings are made in the studio, but all start with sketches made on location and made over many visits over periods of weeks or months at various times of the year.

These paintings have been made by a process that I have come to see as, in some small ways, echoing the changes in the land itself. Their starting point is always a sketch made in a specific location and usually this location will be one I have sketched a number of times and have visited on many, many more occasions. The subsequent studio paintings developed from these sketches are made by applying many layers of colour one on top of the other and sometimes selectively scratching through one layer to reveal the layer beneath.

The surface of the drawings has been heavily ‘disrupted’ by scratching and gouging it with sharp tools, sometimes the scratches will be structural and sometimes they will serve only to add to the textural qualities of the drawing."

john-d-petty.co.uk