Linley Bloom Fields Arts

BOB ALDOUS NAVIGATION TO CALM WATERS LONDON 2024

BOB ALDOUS NAVIGATION TO CALM WATERS LONDON 2024

IN CONVERSATION with Bob Aldous and Alice Andrea Ewing Tuesday 8th October 2024 6.30- 8.30 PM

VENUE LINLEY 60 Pimlico Road, London, SW1W 8LP

Biography Bob Aldous b. 1960 Bob Aldous resides in West London and has his studio in Kingston upon Thames. He was born in Leicester but moved to Banstead in Surrey when he was four. His Quaker father was a social worker and his mother worked as a hospital technician operating the cardiograph equipment at the Royal Marsden Cancer Hospital in Sutton.

He studied Fine Art Painting at Ravensbourne College in Chistlehurst, Kent. In the early 1980s Ravensbourne was a college that valued experimentation and had a particular emphasis on encouraging abstract art. His most influential teachers at the time were Roger Ackling, the conceptual landscape artist and the performance artist, Gustav Metzger. Metzger was not the traditional teacher; invited

by Roger Ackling he just turned up and talked to students. Metzger orchestrated discussions and meetings and invited several students, including Bob Aldous, to participate in Art Actions and performances under the label “Artists Support Peace”.

After his degree, Bob set up an Interior Design Company called Masterstroke Interiors. This involved painting murals and decorative painting in Luxury interiors. Clients included Inn on the Park Hotel, Selfridges, Hyatt Carlton Hotel and the Ritz Theatre.

In year 2005 Bob took a break to revisit his Fine Art roots that also tied in with his upbringing as a Quaker. As a response to the London Bombings he organised the installation “Silver Petition” in Saint Paul’s Cathedral and “Elevation from Terror” in St Pancras Church.

In the last 10 years Bob Aldous has concentrated on painting and clients have include The Old War Office, Twenty Grosvenor Square and the Langham Hotel. These paintings address issues of well being. There is an inner narrative which addresses the human search for tranquillity and calm.

Charting Memory 1 Oil and Tempera on Canvas 150 x 100 cms “ Inspired by looking out towards a distant headland in Sicily. It was evening, and the light was changing from daylight into evening.

As I sat watching the landscape the colours changed from bright ochres and turquoise blues through to gold and purples. The image conjures up the passing of time and views across the Mediterranean sea”

Charting Memory 2 Oil and Tempera on Canvas 150 x 100 cms “ Like “Charting memory One” this in a reflected memory drawn from the experience of changing light.

The title Charting Memory is what happens in the studio when I am painting. There is a passage of time, the gestural marks represent the present moment, the tracking of the hand creating marks in movement.

The other dimension of time relates to memory and the rememberence of the changing hues of blues. As the sky changes light, the dominance of Sun is replaced by the reflective light from the moon.”

The Other Shore Oil and tempera on Canvas 120 x 80 cms “The Other Shore relates to looking out across a Mediterranean bay.

As the eye navigates the landscape a journey takes place that points towards the future but has its roots in a distant memory.”

“But sometimes illumination comes to our rescue at the very moment when all seems lost; we have knocked at every door and they open on nothing until, at last, we stumble unconsciously against the only one through which we can enter the kingdom we have sought in vain a hundred years - and it opens.”

Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time

Flight of the Hoopoe Oil and Tempera on Canvas 80 x 120 cms “ This title relates directly to the Sufi narrative ‘Conference of the Birds’.

I used the narrative in the installation “Elevation from Terror” as a commemoration for the London Bombings. Peace cranes were folded by survivors and families of the terror attack. The folded birds were then tied by threads to hover over the alter of the church which was covered with silver reflective safety blankets.

The story relates to the Sufi story by Farid Atar, the birds in their collective suffering decided to go on a Pilgrimage to find the King of the birds, the mythical bird the Simorgh.

The migration was lead by the Hoopoe.

Many birds died on the harsh journey. When they arrived at the place that they thought the Simorgh resided they found a vast lake, and in it’s reflection images of themselves and others.”

The Distance between Sea and Sky Acrylic, watercolour and Ink on Silk 100 x 150 cms “The vast distance between sea and sky merge into one image.

Using various shades of blue and ochre using the technique of watercolour, ink and acrylic on silk.

The painting uses the illusion of looking down and through transparent water. Translucent washes of watercolour and ink combined with the opaque impasto acrylic.”

Elevation Diptych Watercolour, ink and acrylic on Silk 2 x 150 x 100 cms “ The diptych elevation is based on a series on based on the waterfall Sgwd Henrhyd in Wales.

Walking down the steep valley footpath you come across a footbridge that strands a mountain stream, the sound of falling water in the distance. Following the path, the stream widens out to a waterfall cascading over the cliff edge. The footpaths narrows and I follow it as it goes behind the falls.

The landscape through which I walked now visible through the a moving veil, with the roar of water echoing in my ears. ” In this piece I use the silk as the painting surface. It is one of the oldest surfaces for painting, first used in ancient Chinese paintings.

What is so beautiful about silk is its receptiveness to delicate washes and gestural mark making. Over many years of experimentation I have developed techniques to stabilise the delicate and fragile surface and create a stable substrate receptive to my painting technique.

These pieces on silk use this unique technique of silk painting where layers of paint are built up over many workings. The resulting painting allows a subtle layering of watercolour, inks combine with the tick impasto gestural mark-making, ideal for the painterly depiction of water.

Swift and Dove Oil and Tempera on Canvas 80 x 60 cms Swift and Dove relate to my love of birds.

“From an early age I was interested in birds. I think that this interest may have originated from my early years when we had a pet budgerigar who continually sat beside my cot and high chair. For me birds have come to represent freedom and a state of innocence.

In my use of pictorial space I often use the idea of looking down at the landscape, like looking at a map or looking down from a plane; the bird’s eye view.

Bird migration is mapped through gestural lines. The migration of the swift navigates some three thousand miles from Africa to Europe in our spring and back to Africa through our Autumn.

The flight of the dove returning to Noah’s Ark with an olive branch; a symbol for hope and peace.

Both journeys symbolising ecological significance”

Lasting Promise Gesso, tempera and oil on Canvas 80 x 60 cms “ Using a layered effect to build up the colour. Layers of Tempera are laid over gesso, the gesso then repainted and rubbed back. The final coat being oil paint.

There is a softness in this application of paint, Shapes and space shift as though appearing through the mist over water. “

Indigo Falls Watercolour, ink and acrylic on Silk 100 x 80 cms “ This is another waterfall based abstraction but using tempera and oil paint on a superfine canvas.

Indigo being the dominant blue tone within the painting. As part of my experimentation with colour I like to use multiple hues of blue, all with their own emotional note of colour.

Here the dominant hue is Indigo, but also within the composition I have used ultramarine and turquoise.”

Wild Side Oil and tempera on Canvas 80 x 60 cms “ In a walk there were two separate paths.

One went through the manicured gardens carefully tended and in bloom.

The other path across open countryside, windswept, with it’s own sense of wild beauty.”

Sunlight Rasped Watercolour, ink and acrylic on Silk 80 x 60 cms “ In this painting on silk I use the transparent layers of watercolour and ink but interspersed with bold vibrant fluorescent touches or orange.

There is a dialogue of colours within the colour combination, scorching heat and cool waters ”

As Above As Below Oil and tempera on Canvas 100 x 80 “ Images of Sky and water combined. The idea “as above as below” relates to the visual interaction between sky and water.

It also draws upon the relationship between the objective and subjective realms. Here the world of the imagination and the physical world co-exist.”

Rock Pools Oil and tempera on Canvas 100 x 80 “ Whispering a moment within the ebb and flow.

Rock Pools are small isolated passages of the sea. A microcosm, in which marine life finds a home.”

Migratory Birds follow the Sun Oil and tempera on Canvas 150 x 100 “ Using the idea of flight and the migration of birds to summer lands.

Mapping the immagined flight of Swallows, Swifts and the Nightingales as they follow their journey to fill the sky with their morning song”

Lagoon watercolour, Ink and acrylic on silk 150 x 100 “ Lagoon a distant stretch of water, cut off from the ocean waves.

Using delicate washes of ink and watercolour giving the work a transparent depth”

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