Inferences

For some time now I have been using reflections across water within my paintings to suggest what lies beyond the immediate frame of the picture.

It is for example a good way of indicating the colour and mood of the sky when it is not included within the composition. It occurred to me that I could take this further and infer the landscape environment surrounding a loch solely through the reflections across its surface. 

Concentrating on one element within the landscape allows me to explore the tension between translucence, reflection and surface; and to consider how particular colours can be used to indicate a specific plant, rock or weather condition. Many of these paintings started life as a figurative representation of a particular place, they were then inverted and subjected to the combing and scrape off process that becomes the waters’ surface. The entire painting is altered and little of its original form is allowed to remain; this changed depiction necessitating a new explanation of our perception.

James Hawkins, March 1998