The Fens, a flat, reclaimed marshland area in Eastern England, it certainly doesn't fit the ideal of an English 'green and pleasant land'. To many it is seen featureless and grim. Rows of regimented crops growing in black peaty soil, empty, isolated, devoid of human activity just the sound of a tractor or the cry of a Marsh Harrier. With the wind blowing from the east, its freezing and bites into the skin. Ditches, drains and rivers crisscross the landscape, constantly draining from beneath this reclaimed land, the wind drying and eroding the soil from above.
A landscape that is fragile in its balance between sky and the sea for its very existence.
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| The Fens Acrylic on canvas 120 x 90cm |
The sky sucks me in, its vastness engulfs me into the landscape, makes me feel the cold biting wind yet it feels safe. The base red oxide peeping above the horizon, providing a glow to the harshness of the black soil. This painting has a hard edginess about it, I felt an inner frustration with this project and I just had to let it out. Sky was painted with my fabulous 4 inch decorating brush. Masking tape was applied to make sure the horizon was crisp, blunt and dark, that's how I was feeling (my father was dying) - emotions reveal themselves. Yes I'm pleased with the painting, for me it accurately depicts how I was feeling at the time and it does for me, capture the expansiveness of the Fens.
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