The second of a series of six paintings based on memories of times on Dartmoor. Painted in oils on a wood door panel.
Author: Paul Vachon
I'm an artist living in Devon, South West England. I produce abstract paintings based on my local landscape.
Work in progress on the easel…
I’m currently working on a series of ‘Dartmoor’ memories. Each painted on door panels cut to size.
A new direction…
As I get older, and not necessarily wiser, I find myself looking back on my life and in particular the memories of pivotal points. In advancing years, memory is not always accurate. It gets distorted, confused and quite often blended with other memories. So documentary evidence is very useful to recall memories – in particular…
Finished at last…
Started three years ago – and has changed quite a bit! It’s a lot looser and more flowing than before to emphasise the softer lines of Dartmoor yet retain the isolated location and changing light of this distinctive feature of the moor. Steeperton sits blocking the end of the Taw Valley. It rises up forming…
Latest work…
I consider this is now finished. It’s been on and off the easel for the past three years! Following my current theme on abstraction by stratification of the natural environment. This depicts a deep river valley, Tavy Cleve, on Dartmoor overshadowed by Ger Tor. On bad weather days the valley feels menacing and oppressive. The…
Why Blue?
Blue has a value like no other colour. At one point, more valuable than gold, the colour Blue only existed as one mineral – lapis lazuli. It is the rarest colour in the natural world. Animals and plants that may look Blue are actually devoid of the colour – they refract light in a wavelength…
Analytical Realism
4. Pavel Filonov 1883 – 1941 ‘Composition’ 1929 Pavel Nikolaevich Filonov was a prominent Russian art theorist, painter. He was born on January 8, 1883 in Moscow. He initially studied in the studio of academician L Dmitriev-Kavkazsky for five years and in 1908, aged 25, entered the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts. In 1912, he…
The bigger picture…
There is nothing more frightening to me than a new blank canvas. And although I have a plan – a detailed sketch to work from, laying down that first paint loaded brush onto a pristine white surface takes a lot of effort. In this case it’s two wooden panels I’ve prepared. These form a large…
The construction of abstract
3. Lyubov Popova 1889 – 1924 ‘Spatial Force Construction’ 1920-21 A movement, central to the development of abstract art, took place in Russia just prior to the 1917 revolution. This was ‘constructivism’. This was at first three-dimensional objects, connected by industrial processes and envisaged to be relevant to the new society. But it later developed to…
New painting in the gallery
My other passion is rock climbing. I was a member of our local mountain rescue team and quickly became addicted to climbing. Rock climbing routes are all graded according to their difficulty. Climbers are always striving to achieve the next highest grade. Each rock face may contain many routes to the summit, and with differing…
Paul Vachon 