The Joy of Colour

A solo show by London landscape artist Ian Mowforth.
PV Friday 11 March

Ian Mowforth is a painter who is fascinated by light and colour. In particular how colour is affected by light folding over it. He is currently looking at mornings where the light is soft and forgiving and at afternoons where the light is raking and harsh. He is looking at how light can create complimentary lines around objects within a landscape setting.

In the painting of these carefully composed and constructed images , Mowforth is looking to create an almost photographic tonality with his use of colour and mark making. He’s intrigued by how light pours through barriers like fences onto pathways, creating delicate pools of colour. The use of man made and natural structures within images is also carefully considered. He has been exploring the landscape motif in Yorkshire and in London and regularly returns to the same areas year after year. Differing weather patterns, times of day and seasons are also of huge significance.

The scale of the image is carefully planned as is the scale of the mark making within the composition. The brush strokes are increasingly becoming a visual language of their own as Mowforth’s paintings mature. Occasionally in his practice the artist leaves areas of the densely coloured images ‘incomplete’ so that the viewer is required to become the final piece of the composition. Pictorial devices such as pathways are frequently used so that the viewer is ‘invited’ to walk through the painting itself.
Habitually in his practice Mowforth spends many hours photographing images of interest which may or may not become paintings. The images are often digitally manipulated before being printed out to be used as inspiration.

Since 2019 the artist has become drawn more and more to reflections and how they can offer a different viewpoint in a painting. Sometimes reinforcing an image and often echoing a motif. He has also begun a series of diptychs in the last few months where he has started to place non connected images together. Initially this was begun to offer the audience a heightened sense of being in the landscape environment. More recently some of the images being painted are from very different locations making a more contrasting and jarring effect. The ability to exchange these initial paintings with each other will offer further suggestions for future work.