Originals and Prints
Cart
My work
I have always been fairly sensitive to layers of narrative and experience, and because I have been in or around Lewes, on and off, since my schooldays, many of my personal layers have accumulated here. The town is full of windows, rooms from which I habitually looked out and where I now have no business to be. I inhabit new places and peer from windows I once simply walked past. There are buildings and corners that I have looked on as a schoolboy, a young man and a middle-aged one, in a range of physical, mental and material states. People important to me have left, died or been redistributed around the town. New faces arrive and new things happen. Meanwhile, I am aware that I often move around the place in a state of almost hallucinatory immersion. It is possible, like William Blake, to stare at a knot of wood until one becomes frightened of it. There are shadows, strange patches of luminosity, weird flints in the walls and gesticulating trees which, equally, can revert to familiarity when the light or the wind changes. The things one thinks one sees can outnumber those which may really be there.
I have never wanted my paintings to be seen solely through complicated notions of art. It is possible for representational paintings to be resonant, intense and poetically ambiguous without sacrificing a certain straightforwardness. The truth is that I like the craft of painting, the materials, the processes and the problems, as much as I like to daydream. I enjoy being surprised by everyday splendour, layers of light, emotion and memory. The luck to be astonished in the right place.
You can see some of my work (and purchase prints) by clicking on the images below. The first set are 'works in the studio' and as well as prints being available, the originals are available for purchase - please contact me to discuss. The originals of the second set are now sold or are otherwise unavailable, but prints are always available for purchase. I hope you like them.
© 2024 Peter Messer