STEPHEN HOBBS
YELLOW - GREEN
I have always been influenced by colour and abstraction. The power of colour and its ability to influence our mood is a phenomenon that provides endless scope for exploration as a painter. My earliest memories are seeing multi-coloured sails on Sydney Harbour and brightly coloured cars everywhere. We used colour more freely as a society back then. These days the palette out on the streets seems to be far more limited, with corporate logos everywhere. We are overburdened with complex visual information, both in the virtual world and online.
I strive for simplicity in the resolution of my paintings. To quote the great Australian architect Glenn Murcutt “simplicity contains complexity” [1]. In the process of making these works I was considering the key elements of format, colour and composition. Finding I needed something else to pull everything together, texture came into play. Texture makes light refract in a random way all over the surface of the work, which along with the way the different colours interact with each other, makes the paintings work in a physical sense.
Along with texture, this is the first time I have ever painted on the edge of the support, rather than just leaving the edges primed white. This gives the work a more sculptural feel when sitting on a wall with a lot of breathing space around it. I wanted the paintings to be strong but quiet, to provide a sense of calm to the viewer.
[1] Glenn Murcutt, ‘Belonging’, Youtube, 2019.
