One of the main constant elements of my work has been color. I am totally seduced by its effects and it is the main reason why I paint. While the subject matter of my work changes, it has always expressed 'thought' the language of color. In some of my work, color  is the subject of painting, as is the case with 'Hot day'. You are meant to see a landscape, but the work is not so much about landscape as it is the harmony of color relationships. I imagine that the work is partially inspired by my experiences in the Australian wilderness which is characterized by monumental land forms. It is the feeling of awareness and power from standing in front of  large rock formations that I am attempting to offer to my audience. I have given  'Hot day' in this instance  a generic title so as not to restrict it's meaning. The way the color is used in 'Two Trees' is very different from 'Hot day' as it is not attempting to talk about harmony, but a more electric type of energy. A shocking, lightning type of power that comes from manipulating the polarities that can be found in color. These color relationships are hard won and are the product of years of experience.   The polarity in 'Two Trees' is not so much a warm/cool contrast, but rather an Acid/Base one.

Originally I opted to make abstract-like work, in order to deny people figurative labels they might place on the paintings. I wanted to encourage people to feel their own interpretation of the work rather than interpret logically, for example, the way it's painted is more important than what the painting is depicting. This ideology has not changed , but I have now started to paint much more representational works. This change was partly motivated by my in-ability to get out into the landscape, and my need  to refer to things that were more common to my experience and my audiences. By emphasizing the space objects create rather than the objects themselves, I was still attempting to point to the emotive as apposed to the literal.  'Descending light in Warehouse' is a painting about hope. That in amongst all struggle and despair that is an artist's life, there might be a sort of salvation one day.   With 'Quite Passage' I was thinking about the moment of trepidation one can experience in a corridor space before going into exam or into a hospital room. Strangely, some months after finishing this painting I faced a situation  of having to fly to Canberra visit my father who was critically  ill in hospital in intensive care.   Unless a place really speaks out to me, I have stuck to painting spaces that I have spent a lot of time in so that I can feel comfortable reconstructing a real space into one that reflects my own feelings.

Edwin