Rod Sees Red! – and paints it!
Q: How is it that now Rod Sees Red!? A:“For a while now I’ve been considering where my art’s at in the past, present and the future. I could feel a change coming on. Just because I stop painting in a certain way doesn’t mean that I don’t believe in it any more. It just means I need a break, a change of “wallpaper” around me and a chance to see things afresh. Also, I would be a liar if I denied that I am always thinking about how to re-invent my artistic expression and possibly create something totally new (or at least something rare in the art world).
Rod Sees Red! – Field testing a new theory.
So it was with this intention in mind that I set off for my two week retreat on the Atlantic coast of Kerry, Ireland. I am always careful to approach things scientifically in an arty way. In practice this means just changing only one element of my painting-modus-opperandae at a time, and that way I can easily identify how and why the results look different to previous work. So armed with a need for change and a willingness to throw caution to the wind I decided to turn my palette on its head.
Rod Sees Red! – and paints it!
After much musing ahead of my residency I decided to introduce radical amounts of red into my landscapes regardless if they were there or not. That was the basic theory but I still had yet to discover (through making the pictures) how that could work in practice. So for the first couple of days at the retreat I worked plein air, painting fast and loose in acrylics. First off I swapped the greens of the landscape for a tonally similar palette of reds. Then, as a ying to the yang, I started replacing the blues of the sea and sky with a palette of reds. Looking at the two versions side by side I saw instantly that the second option still looked realistic, just as if painted at sunrise or sunset. But where the land was red instead that took on a completely other worldly feel. So armed with my new painting-modus-opperandae I went to work for ten days painting the world red!
Rod Sees Red! – Oil on canvas in high speed.
“Ballinskelligs Bay” was created this month on a two week residency at the artists retreat Cill Rialaig, Co. Kerry, Ireland. I spent my time there experimenting with a new palette – namely switching the greens of the land for reds, corals and hot pinks – just to see what the effect would be. The canvas was completed plein air but later I distressed the surface little back at the studio. This part of the process opens the door to chance and takes the final say out of my hands. I love this painting because it has an abstract and other-worldly feel and yet it reads as a landscape drawn from life.”
– Rod Coyne – Rod Sees Red!
