Les Alpilles Mausanne Provence Series

This collection of Impressionist paintings on canvas and paper are a product of my recent residency in Mausanne Provence this year @ngartcreativeresidency. The theme running through all the works are these extraordinary white limestone monolith mountains called Les Alpilles that circle the towns of Mausanne, St Remy and Arles.

I had this visionary experience over a year ago to paint a series where figures commune with nature and to juxtapose these two opposite textures and colour palettes alongside each other.  Where the subtleties and fragility of the flesh are ensconced in the textural, untamed nature of the landscape – while in the background the grandeur and reflective qualities of the Alpilles loom over them.

In my works on paper, many painted plein-air in Provence, I worked with gouache, ink, pastel and collage.  The vividness in these paintings are a deliberate celebration of the light, space and expansive skies while walking through the olive groves, pastures, villages and mountain tracks Van Gogh, Cezanne and Gauguin would have encountered in the 1800’s.