In December 1991 I travelled to London with the Rocket Boys and we visited a good paper supplier and sketchbook maker (John Purcell in Stockwell). I got a big pack of Bockingford which I still have half of and this Somerset Paper A4 sketchbook.
In retrospect what fascinating is that already on the 3rd December 1991 I going in a new direction which would not have fitted in with the ‘ruralism’ of the Downland series which were shown at the Rocket Press on the 15th /16th December.
I described the new work like this in a press release the next year:
‘Icons of the Fields’
Following a year of walking and recording the Berkshire Downs the sense of landscape has influenced my new works. Hills and fields appear as backdrops to startling abstract/surreal figures which owe much to the sculptural tradition of Moore and the poetic lyricism of Chagall. It also shows the influence of French and Italian ‘New Painting’ of the 1980s.
