I first started working on this painting more than three years ago. For a long time I have been an admirer of ‘The Isle of the Dead’ by Arnold Bocklin and I had already painted several pictures influenced by this masterpiece. I remember reading that Bocklin had said that he wanted to have ‘a picture for dreaming over’. Sitting in my London flat in a room without a view I wanted to have a picture for dreaming over and what’s more I had recently discovered the perfect subject for a Bocklinesqe picture. Laid out across the floor was a series of photographs and sketches of the most amazing place. I had just returned from a sketching trip to southern Ireland and while I was over there I had discovered an extensive ruin called Athassel Abbey, situated just outside the town of Golden. Neglected for centuries the ruins of the transepts and the monastery that once surrounded them are spread across several fields beside a fast flowing river. Broken and battered by many storms the ancient stones were spotted with lichen and a thick carpet of moss lay across the stone quadrangles, it was reminiscent of ‘Gormenghast’, the rambling gothic castle in Meryvn Peake’s novels even though the moss wasn’t quite ankle deep and one didn’t need a stick to beat back the cobwebs that festooned the dusty stairwells. The atmosphere was further enhanced by the loneliness of the place, every time I went there it was utterly deserted.
I began by painting the abbey, I tried to make it look as if the river had burst its banks and then I added some graves and statues. I wanted to paint a place that looked as if it had been abandoned by humanity, a vision of a possible future when our world has fallen victim to some fierce weather conditions. In any case I love painting ruins and graveyards and I decided that this was going to be my ultimate cemetery painting. This picture is painted almost entirely from photographs. It couldn’t be done any other way as I have sifted through hundreds of images in order to find the material I need. As the painting developed the abbey began to recede and the viewpoint changed, I dropped the water level and added some geese and coots then I dropped the water level again as the foreground started to take shape.
I have always liked deep-toned paintings; certain pictures by Francis Danby spring to mind and then there’s Friedrich’s ‘The Abbey in the Oak Wood’, Miillais’s ‘The Haunted House’ and many others. Last summer I saw an exhibition at the National Gallery which really impressed me. It was called ‘Radical Light’ and it featured the paintings of a group of Italian artists called Divisionists. As this movement is spliced in between Symbolism and Futurism it has often been overlooked. Divisionist artists aimed to create the maximum intensity of light through the use of optical colour. I have painted many pictures with this intention in mind and seeing the show inspired me to rework the middle distance in my own painting.
I have devoted many hours to the creation of this picture and sometimes I ask myself the following questions. Why do I do it? What am I seeking to achieve and when is this project finally going to be finished? What is perfection? The answer to the last question is simple – there is no such thing. However artists must seek it because the attempt to do so vindicates one’s own life, it represents the search for an enlightenment of sorts. Visual Enlightenment, I like the sound of those words but what do they really mean?