Venice ~ A Sublime air

Stepping into venice for the first time I was arrested into the dream. All the preconceived clichés disappeared as one was left to bask in the citiy’s opulence and splendour. I realised what a real place the dream is.

Coming from the edge of Europe,Cornwall where one paints the open skies of the Atlantic ocean, to Venice was quite a jump. The two seemed quite different, yet both share a similar trait of having their own unique ‘spatial light’.
Whilst Venice is all city, it still shares a characteristic of being a thin, yet immensely beautiful, sliver of land betwixt sea and sky.
It is this larger space that I have concentrated on in most of the works in this show.

The Light floods through and over the city, sometimes distorting and bending the architectural space. Taking a walk, I can be bathed in the most exotic of lights and then turn a corner and find myself in a deep mysterious nocturnal shadow down a Calle. Always the sound of gentle creeping water never too far.

It is this sense of evocation that draws me here , and the images in this show are like memories that permeate my nature after spending time in these islands.

As an artist who believes in the celebration of beauty it is a most beautiful place.

Tom Rickman 2005