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A series of abstract paintings exploring the vibrations, rhythms, and musicality in landscapes and nature

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John Worth takes inspiration from the daily walks in the landscapes he uses to underpin his artistic interrogations.

 

Repeating the same journey, taking photos as he goes, he develops an intimate connection with the landscape. 

 

The results are paintings, sketches and photographs that pay homage to the synergies of the rhythms he discovers in the contours of the landscape combined with the abstract qualities of the textures, light and shadow as they change through the seasons. 

 

Music

Both walking and in the studio, music is important to his creative process; abstract paintings blend the sense of musicality he feels in the landscape itself with his inner landscape.

 

Some pieces are based on the five lines of a musical stave, suggesting the two experiences of music and land superimposed upon each other, generating unique sets of rhythms and vibrations.

 

A preoccupation with traces, fragments, exposure and erasure all work to pose a question about identity.

 

Process

A habit of producing daily sketches enables an immediate translation of his visceral experiences; a way of responding to the energies in the landscape; an occasion to witness the rhythmic and chaotic narrative of nature as it changes.

  

His work speaks to the tradition of lyrical abstraction. Many paintings are suggestive of surfaces aged by the passage of time.

 

He builds these surfaces using his own techniques that include layering strips of linen or canvas and overlaying in mixed media, scratching and sanding back multiple times, resulting in a patina that suggests both the action of time and multiple stories interacting. 

 

Textures and touch

As a way of countering the over-saturation of our lives with screen-based images, he is increasingly concerned with the finished painting as a physical and tactile artefact.

 

Many pieces invite touch, recalling the visceral inspiration of their beginnings, and some are finished with a wax varnish to enable this type of engagement.

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BA (hons) Photography, Film, Video, Animation

West Surrey College of Art & Design 

(now the University for the Creative Arts, Farnham)

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