This dynamic mixed-media work captures Putney Bridge on a raw, turbulent winter’s day, viewed eastward from the south embankment. Its genesis lies in a drawing made en plein air on a bitterly cold January morning—that stark time of year when the afterglow of Christmas has faded, leaving the days feeling long, damp and unwelcoming.
Executed in a visceral fusion of media—the liquid washes of acrylic, the raw immediacy of charcoal, and the scumbled, textural highlights of oil paint—the work transcends mere topography. It seeks to capture the complex emotional resonance of a New Year in London: the palpable bleakness, but also the unexpected beauty within it. The skyline, with its bruised clouds and fleeting, watery light, offers moments of transcendence, while the cold wind sweeps away the residual haze of the year just ended, inviting a stark mental clarity.
The expressive, almost violent, mark-making enters into a direct dialogue with the internal drama of Francisco Goya’s etchings, particularly his Los Caprichos and Disasters of War. The fractured textures and explosive splatters of charcoal do not merely describe a storm; they evoke the emotional interiority of the scene, a turbulence within as much as without.
Ultimately, through its gestural application of pigment and layering of media, the work finds its subject in an intersection: the external, elemental chill meeting the internal stirrings of resolution and renewal. It is a portrait of a moment of harsh, invigorating clarity, as one steps into the uncertain promise of a new year.
This dynamic mixed-media work captures Putney Bridge on a raw, turbulent winter’s day, viewed eastward from the south embankment. Its genesis lies in a drawing made en plein air on a bitterly cold January morning—that stark time of year when the afterglow of Christmas has faded, leaving the days feeling long, damp and unwelcoming.
Executed in a visceral fusion of media—the liquid washes of acrylic, the raw immediacy of charcoal, and the scumbled, textural highlights of oil paint—the work transcends mere topography. It seeks to capture the complex emotional resonance of a New Year in London: the palpable bleakness, but also the unexpected beauty within it. The skyline, with its bruised clouds and fleeting, watery light, offers moments of transcendence, while the cold wind sweeps away the residual haze of the year just ended, inviting a stark mental clarity.
The expressive, almost violent, mark-making enters into a direct dialogue with the internal drama of Francisco Goya’s etchings, particularly his Los Caprichos and Disasters of War. The fractured textures and explosive splatters of charcoal do not merely describe a storm; they evoke the emotional interiority of the scene, a turbulence within as much as without.
Ultimately, through its gestural application of pigment and layering of media, the work finds its subject in an intersection: the external, elemental chill meeting the internal stirrings of resolution and renewal. It is a portrait of a moment of harsh, invigorating clarity, as one steps into the uncertain promise of a new year.
