Three Questions to PETER DAVIS

Georgina Coburn ask Peter Davis three questions about his work

Your work is deeply meditative, capturing a sense of stillness and connection many people seek in the Northern landscape. Can you tell us more about the natural environment of Shetland as a grounding force in your life?

I was drawn to northern landscapes in my twenties having moved to Orkney and finding a place almost stripped bare, treeless and open to the elements. The weather and the seasons played an important and integral part of living in that environment particularly on a small island. And the move to Shetland over thirty years ago only strengthened that relationship. The sea is ever present and continually changing, as is the light. It’s in such landscapes that we encounter the sublime, the rugged coastline being just one aspect, which affects me both emotionally and creatively. I embrace the isolation too. There’s a feeling of being a small part of that natural world, something which is way bigger than oneself. That sense too of being at the edge literally, months of winter darkness followed by almost endless days in the summer. Trying to grasp those elements and create something which reflects my feelings on living here is what makes painting for me so exciting, frustrating, demanding but ultimately rewarding.

You are renowned for your mastery of watercolour as a medium. Your recent works combine bodycolour and chalk with watercolours, bringing subtle textures into play with translucency of light and colour. How did use of these pigments evolve in your practice and do they offer a certain resistance in fluidity?

I painted my last oil painting in 1981 having moved north to Orkney and found a kind of imagery and landscape that I could best re-present through a medium which acted in a similar way to the natural world around me, using stillness and water. Watercolour and landscape has over the years suffered with an ‘image’ problem being associated often with the amateur, the elderly and the temporary in its use as a sketching material. But it is much more than that, being a medium grounded in the natural world and responding to it almost as a microcosm of that world if it’s allowed the freedom to do so. The textural effects are enhanced by the material it’s painted on, usually paper or board. An extra dynamic can be found adding chalk or pastel on top of the watercolour, not to obliterate the watercolour, or to hinder its flow, but to enhance the textural effects. In the same way bodycolour, or white gouache (in other words the white opaque paint popular in nineteenth century watercolour) can create a further layer in the texture as an alternative to spaces left in the white paper which can be too stark. This effect works best over dark pigment or dark paper. Its granulation is another element in the process of building up layers.

You’ve spoken about the point at which ‘ the act of painting and the inherent action of nature align.’ What excites you most about going out to meet nature everyday and how does this challenge you as an artist?

As I’ve suggested, I consider watercolour the most natural of the painting mediums in that it responds in a way that mirrors the action of water. What better medium to use when making work related to water either that of sea or loch or weather. And the dried pigment left on the paper is often mineral in origin.

I live minutes from the coast, walking on the cliffs and beach regularly, and the continual action of sea and the ever-changing light never fails to inspire my work. Indeed, I often find myself responding automatically to sudden changes in the weather, in the light over the sea, reflected in the washes I make.

I then leave the paint to dry naturally and there’s always excitement in returning to see the results.

For me this drying time is crucial to my practice. I’ve never felt the need to depict everything in the landscape; the work often embraces abstraction over representation and all the spaces between. Finally, there is the quality that both the Shetland weather and watercolour share, total unpredictability!

Concrete and Steel or Nature

The Dewilding of the Highlands

Kilmorack Gallery gives its full support to all fights to save communities and nature from the current very real threat that will denature the Highlands forever. Hundreds of miles of giant pylons, substations and windfarms are planned over the next few years, and Scotland already produces enough renewable energy to meet its twenty-year target. They are just not needed. This area, which is famed for its wild beauty, may soon lose all its charms. There are similarities with the clearances and the squandering of oil revenues.

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+44 (0) 1463 783 230 art@kilmorackgallery.co.uk by beauly, inverness-shire iv4 7al