Page 8 - Essay Awakenings Reloaded by Paul McCloskey

Apart from the dramatic compositions, the textural, tactile paint
flowing into smooth,

changing colour and
fleeting light
contrasted and
emerging from dark

areas of space have
also added to the
movement and drama

within these works. In
fig 4, I have worked
black from the outer

edges of the canvas,
gradually meeting
Fig 5. Landscape with Green. Triptych. Oil on Canvas. 183cm X
Prussian blue, with
hints of violet and increasing the tonal and textural elements as the eye is drawn

towards the central focus of the painting. These seemingly empty areas/spaces
in all of the paintings, occupy considerably more space on the canvas than the
intricate more intensely

texture details, giving
space for the viewer to

absorb the vastness and
allowing those more
obvious detailed areas to
stand out as special or

precious (fig
1a.2a.3a.4a.5a.) This
equilibrium between dark

and light, subtle and
obvious, textured and
smooth is important to the Fig 5a. Landscape with Green. Detail

reading of the painting. I

have attempted to achieve the preciousness of Turner’s intricateness combined
with the impact of Rothko’s scale and force, with the intention of drawing the

viewer into the flows and obscure textures of the emerging landscape, almost as
if witnessing its birth or creation. The final painting in the series, fig 5, has a
more limited pallet and is smaller in scale to the others in the series; the central