Mars 1 (Earl Richards Road North)

This painting is one of a developing series of works in which I am exploring aspects of both the mythology and reality of the planet Mars (as we know it) by means of painting and experimental animation. This painting however emphasises a connection between the red colours associated with Mars ' barren landscape and that of the native soil in Devon. Here, there is also an ambiguous suggestion of past and present, with scenes of plundered land and broken trees behind, and fierce new life in the foreground. The latter however, are plants from the Devonian age, long before human presence on the Earth, drawn in a manner more diagrammatic than real. The image is painted with a combination of commercial oil paints and pigment from the cliffs at Sidmouth, Devon (which is becoming the main material in my current work related to this theme). More personal connections are woven into this as the distant view relates to the site of the late Exeter College of Art and Design, where my formative years were spent.