IAN MOWFORTH

Ian Mowforth is a painter who is fascinated by light and colour. In particular how colour is affected by light folding over it. He is currently looking at mornings where the light is soft and forgiving and at afternoons where the light is raking and harsh. He is looking at how light can create complimentary lines around objects within a landscape setting.

In the painting of these carefully composed and constructed images , Mowforth is looking to create an almost photographic tonality with his use of colour and mark making. He’s intrigued by how light pours through barriers like fences onto pathways, creating delicate pools of colour. The use of man made and natural structures within images is also carefully considered. He has been exploring the landscape motif in Yorkshire and in London and regularly returns to the same areas year after year. Differing weather patterns, times of day and seasons are also of huge significance.

The scale of the image is carefully planned as is the scale of the mark making within the composition. The brush strokes are increasingly becoming a visual language of their own as Mowforth’s paintings mature. Occasionally in his practice the artist leaves areas of the densely coloured images ‘incomplete’ so that the viewer is required to become the final piece of the composition. Pictorial devices such as pathways are frequently used so that the viewer is ‘invited’ to walk through the painting itself.