The “Frigid Warmth” Collection
Spanning the length of my 15 year career as a visual artist, my work has always retained much of the same elements – vast landscapes and seascapes, on oversized canvasses. The mediums usually dripped, poured, scraped, sprayed and wiped onto the surface, in washes and glazes, which left my work with a feeling of spontaneity and a life of its own.
Since moving to England from South Africa, and as my time here has elapsed, I have become inexplicably and increasingly enamored with its cold, harsh winters. The end of the year used to be a challenge, an effort, something I needed to get through. The dark was too encompassing, suffocating. The saturation and ice. The silence of snow.
A period of deep introspection has changed that all.
I have grown to embrace it. And appreciate the beauty in it. It has required personal transformation. The oranges and golds and paynes grey. The crisp clear mornings. Part of this metamorphosis has enabled me to work on a smaller scale. Reducing and stripping down in a way. I still employ the same techniques of application, while striving to replicate those big, expansive, open countryside and oceanic spaces. Delving into the work of Turner and Constable has brought about a completely new intimacy to my work.
I am now painting what is relevant to me. I am painting what means something for me, and what turns me on.
This body of work entitled “frigid warmth” explores my infatuation and relationship with those cold, wet, dark, barren, windswept English landscapes and the undeniable beauty I have found in it. Donovan Stanford
