David Hunt
The natural landscape informs my work, but then so does the urban landscape. I place these subjects against each other in order to explore contemporary notions of landscape whilst maintaining a discourse with historical landscape painting. I aim for my work to respond to both the history of landscape painting and the desire to expand upon that history, whereby landscape painting might continue to capture the imagination of a 21st century audience.
ÂThe natural and urban environments contain the physical matter which might be thought of as my subject matter, however the true subject matter of my painting is not a physical, tangible thing. Traditionally, landscape painting might be thought of as ‘a window on the world’, I feel that my work is perhaps more like ‘a window on the mind’ and so in order to paint my subject, I draw upon the physical matter of both environments, where the asymmetry of the natural landscape is in juxtaposition against the linearity of the urban environment. These boundaries or lines become a metaphorical paradox between both environmental paradigms. My subject matter is therefore in limbo, somewhere between the figuration of representation, and the lyricism of abstraction, somewhere between the physical world and the subconscious mind.
