The Wave

A blue and white painting of energetic wave formations and white water. Wet through wet oil paint is handled freshly, creating a lyrical and vigorous sense of movement and spray.

Excerpt: Interview Transcription

2021

 

 GU: My brother and I would escape to the sea, even in the dead of winter. We’d surf in rough and treacherous conditions, with great risk to our lives but without fear. Time away from the farm was beneficial.  It could be a heavy place at times. The sea was a whole other world without parochial constructs or limitations. To be there was both physically and mentally emancipating. It authorised the power to think and act and speak independently and confidently and inspired the freedom to question. 

Colliding with the driving force of a set, ten-foot-high, resuscitates the body and the mind.  Winter swell smacks the drudgery out of you.  You become acutely aware of your corporeal fragility and the transitoriness of life, as you paddle over jagged reefs in icy, black water.  And it is dark, the water…in winter. It is formidable, the ocean, and you, you are insignificant.  The Cornish coast is renowned for its hidden dangers.  Over its nautical history, the rocks, gales and stormy seas around the county have claimed the lives of countless men and women. There is nothing remarkable about me. Nature humbles me; and there is strength in humility, I think.  

A series of wave paintings in the making by Geoff Uglow British artist at his studio in Cornwall. Wet through wet thick deep impasto oil paint

The wave never exists in a still form.  It is an entity that constantly moves and changes shape and translucency.  The painting of it is achieved only first by watching it.  Following that circular motion of heaving and tumbling over days, months, even years and holding certain points of its pattern of repetition in your eye.  Only then, over the course of time, can an image of it be painted as static.  A lot of time is spent quietly observing.

When I think of wave paintings, I think of Joan Eardley.  She enjoyed the challenge of expressing what she saw in a rough sea with what she was feeling inside…the struggle of it all.  She made great paintings of the sea. Hokusai and Courbet too.  Courbet painted directly.  Without unnecessary details.  I try to do that with my own wave paintings, I think.  It is a wave - I simply paint it.  I capture the essence of it and that is all I need to do.  The colour, texture and energy of motion in it pours forth all manner of emotions all by itself. But you must pay attention to what you are looking at.  You must take the time to observe the water on that given day, as it presents itself - as it oscillates about its fixed position, returning always to its original equilibrium - and it will divulge its own, unique tale. 

Seascape wave painting of the Cornish coast at sunset using thick oil paint and iridescent pearlescent pigments which highlight the depth and movement of the water and the pink hue of the sky. There is a vast illusion of space.

Each wave has a singular personality, according to the light that falls upon it and the light that can be seen through it.  It provides us with attributions of a personal nature without intervention or invention on my part.  I paint waves and seascapes directly and with truth to reality.  I passively observe for long stretches of time.  My mind and body absorb the details of information in the energy being carried by the water, until my painters’ hand is able to translate those sensations formally, within the picture plane.  Meaning and emotion spring out of those visual elements and create mood and atmosphere.  Maintaining a relationship with the sea is part of daily life.  Even when in the studio I listen to the shipping forecast.  It is another form of diarising, marking time as it passes.  Same places, same locations.  But different moods.  The weather out at sea will meet the land at some point and have an effect upon it.

Monochromatic painting of waves of the sea using two colours, white and blue. Marks through the impasto paint create ebb and flow and rhythm.

I could say that surface waves appear to behave like humans.  Their character changes depending on the amount of energy passing through them, and at what time of the day or in what season.  The way a wave behaves can be perceived as if it is an emotional being.  Like I am an emotional being.   It inhales and exhales.  It can be sullen, pensive or peacefully calm.  Then again, it can be aggressive and even unpredictable.  The energy within the wave stretches and forces the particles this way and that which results in giving it a certain character.  The painter transports and displaces paint in a certain way, depending on the energy flowing through his hand.  That energy determines what sort of personality the painted mark has.

Two freshly made paintings of the sea sit on a studio table. The wet oil paint is wet pours off the edges of the boards and collects in pools. Two paint pots can be seen in the blurry background
 

Geoff Uglow

Cornwall Studio 2021