This acrylics on plexiglas, whether in the detail (above), or the whole painting (below), is all about organic nature played off against geometric forms: the man-made. The overall shape is that of a head with its fantasy of sailing boats, docks, a village church (the top of the yellow sail is its steeple), mooring buoys, sunset, moon/eye, water and sky, and all running at a full high tide.
In this picture I was especially interested to demonstrate and exploit the total flexibility of acrylics—its range from the loosest, thinnest, most diluted watercolour effects to glowing translucence (that profoundly deep blue in which floats an aluminum foil full moon), to the absolutely flat, dense, and to the utmost brilliance in saturated colours. Unlike oil paints, acrylics can also be laid down easily, if required, with absolutely exquisite perfection of edge.
The hard-edged curves and shapes were deliberately intended to evoke the exuberant sound / shapes / colours of French and English Horns in full call across an evening strait or bay, with a sail or two bending in the fading light and winds of evening. And an entirely new perception occurs to me now: the red shape also suggests a humming bird that has just sated its taste for nectar and is softly backing away from a deep-throated flower—the flower of life.
In a very separate context, somehow the inner content, the inner life, the spirit of the whole image is so complete and fulfilled that every time I look at this painting I associate it with a line from an old John Masefield poem that we were encouraged to memorize as school children “. . . and may there be no moaning at the bar when I put out to sea”. It’s a picture without regrets.
Sailor on Belvy Bay, NL Acrylics on Plexiglas 32” x 38” 1989
fillière 