A Slice of Life
- John Anderson

Opening night Tuesday, 3 March 6pm – 8pm

John Anderson has split his subject matter between landscape and figurative painting through his career. He uses images both photographic and cinematic along with a filed away mental storehouse of images to kick start his visual output. The Muse might, and perhaps must, play a part, but ultimately it is hard work that sees a work reach its success.

For John, his landscapes are never precisely representational, and even though they reference trees, sky, sea and roads, they always carry his strong memory and emotional reaction to what is before the eye. They are a kind of melding between reality and his emotional relationship to the subject. The works are both beautiful and perplexing and depict persistent landscape themes; roads to distant horizons, troubles seas and dark gullies stir unsettling thoughts of the now and trouble yet to be.

John’s figurative works also refer to his memory, for example To the motel, 2021 and Threshold, 2008 reference experiences either from childhood or early adulthood. In the 50s and 60s, John regularly went to the movies in the afternoon, and he grabbed and held tight to images of life that could never have otherwise been revealed to him.

To deal with universal human experience is a difficult task, but one that John has aimed to meet head on in the hope that he can reveal to the view, even slightly, an understanding of the mystery of why and how we are as we are.