This painting is mixed media on panel and measures 60x60cm. It really became a key piece for the new series of Greek paintings.
This piece was the first that captures the intensity of the Greek light. I knew that part of the key would be the way the buildings were handled. The small whitewashed houses and tavernas cluster around the harbour. Their forms are rather square but at the same time they appear to have grown organically. It is the sunlight that really transforms them and even in the shadows there is a luminous quality. So I wanted them to have an animated quality, a certain movement and rhythm.
I enjoy playing with his fine balance between figurative and abstract. In one sense this piece could almost be seen as a colour field painting. Carefully placed elements such as the small cloud create scale and movement. The gradation in the sky was also important as it animates what could otherwise have been quite a large flat area of blue.
The paint is applied quite freely at first with both brush and palette knife. Colour is allowed to dry and more layers are applied, each refining and enriching. This carries on until I feel the subject has been claimed as my own.
Many variations on this theme then followed, this lead me on to explore other Greek subject matter.