The Emotion of Colour Pt 2 ©John O’Grady
3 paintings 6″ x 6″ x 1.25″, acrylic and oil on panel, ready to hang.
SOLD
Each painting in the set can be bought individually from the art-shop.
Two weeks ago I posted a collection of three paintings called ‘The Emotion of Colour’ as a small tribute to the painter Howard Hodgkin.
I found great satisfaction in putting them together, balancing one jewel-like piece next to the other so I carried on.
Today, I’d like to show you three more.
This week, you can see the motif ‘Take me to the Island’ I return to frequently. In the previous ‘Take me to the Island’ paintings, the colours are softer and more subdued.
With these three pieces, the colours are richer, more saturated. And, like two weeks ago, each evokes a passage of time from the glorious burnt orange of an evening sunset through to the blue-black night with a glowing rose sky and finally, the pale yellow-green light that announces dawn.
Each island’s shape and viewpoint is different, imagined and felt rather than descriptive of a particular place along the western seaboard. Yet, you may have stood at the shore, looking afar at one of these solitary islands and pondering about life.
Each painting works individually but the three paintings are enriched by being placed together. Their enigmatic, melancholic air play on what we notice, can’t see and only guess at…
I’d love to hear what you think.
So many impressions.
Interesting (and telling, I think) that you begin with sunset and end with sunrise.
How lovely the way that genius band of violet under the yellow and orange (!!) is carried over subtly into the fuchsia of the next painting, and the blues are carried through into the third, melting into that heavenly green.
The shifts in perspective from one to the next have a pleasingly disorienting effect.
The light (both source and reflected) — as in all your paintings, but quite gently here — has a moving and powerful presence.
Each one elicits a strong feeling, from burning nostalgia through peace and mystery to wonder and hope.
They are all at once simple and profound, and they hum in concert like harmonic tones.
I hope they are purchased together! It would be like separating young siblings to tear them apart.
Thanks once again, John, for bringing such transcendent beauty into my Sunday afternoon.
Hello Jo,
I read with great interest your thoughts and feelings about the painting. I was particularly drawn to what you said about how they worked in unison with each other.
‘They are all at once simple and profound, and they hum in concert like harmonic tones’.
That is very much what I had in mind as I worked on them, so that really pleases me to hear that, thank you very much. I am glad to hear that it brought something to your Sunday
For me these gems are instilled with feeling evoked by the sensitive use of colour and composition. The concept of your ‘Take Me to the Island’ series is always fascinating with endless possibilities but the key element is the sense they give me of looking out , across and beyond to a place and experience as yet unknown. In these three, that suggetsion of looking from the shore is present but instead of the variable effects of the elements they elicit different moods created by the atmosphere felt at different times of day. They are very human, moving and rather lovely.
Hello Chris,
Thank you for your thoughtful comment. It is very much as you described about the ‘Take me to the Island’ paintings. as you say ‘looking out , across and beyond to a place and experience as yet unknown’ the motif is the same I think but shifted through mood and colour and more decorative in how they relate to each other.
Hi John, each of the three paintings are wonderful in their own way – but the trio are lovely together. It’s hard to choose between them but I think my favourite (at the moment) is the first one, the warm sunset with the island seeming to float above a hazy mist. Maybe it’s the great sense of distance that you have created in this small beautiful painting. Best wishes, eoin
Hello Eoin,
Thank you for your comment. Yes I was quite struck with the floating like aspect of No1, a lucky accident, which I picked up on. Glad to hear you think they work together.