Category Archives: Paintings

Peter Hobden

Posted on by
1

Peter Hobden has a quiet demeanour. He speaks little of his important work in computing or of his expertise in digital photography. Early retirement allows him to widen his horizons further. He takes up painting in 2007 under the demanding tutelage of Hélène Burgi. In short time, he develops and masters the loose and relaxed brushstrokes in bold oil colours that become his trademark technique. One would assume he would focus on the natural world but, surprisingly, his forte is the cityscape. On medium-size canvases, his style and chosen theme merge to great effect. The result is atmosphere.

Peter Hobden 1

In 2010, I visit Peter’s studio in Geneva shortly after he and his wife Sophie return from a trip to Italy. He shows me a canal scene in Venice. I fall for it and buy it immediately. But Sophie can’t bear to see Peter’s pictures leave the studio. It is as though a part of him is also disappearing.

Peter Hobden 2

His technique advances. The #TwitterArtExhibit stipulates a post-card size work. Peter’s entry in 2012 is a delightful 16cm x 12cm dash of oil on card creating an evening street scene in Carouge, Geneva.

Peter’s work has evolved rapidly. This evolution is unlikely to stop now. Perhaps in the near future, Talking Beautiful Stuff will blog about Peter reaching back to expertise in other domains to master digital painting. Then his work doesn’t have to leave the studio!

Perfect Parrot

Posted on by
2

“Perfect Parrot.” Were this the name of a chique new cocktail bar, it would not be surprising to find this picture, discretely but emphatically lit, centrally placed and imposing itself on the fashionable clientele. It would probably be the motif on place mats and elegant little menus. And maybe, sipping a pinacolada, a party-goer might just notice that there is in fact, no parrot; and that the exquisite colours, which without doubt bring to mind a notion of “parrot,” are perfectly balanced in form and tone. He or she might realise that the eye-comfiness is augmented by the dark marginal line serving as a frame to be both respected and encroached upon. With further reflection, he or she might conclude that the sophistication has been further amplified by child-like application of the paint whilst the forms and colour choices are far from childlike.

Perfect Parrot

But …. “Perfect Parrot” was painted by a child! Josephine is eight years old. She comes from Indonesia. She has huge brown eyes and a dazzling row of very white teeth. Her enthusiasm for anything creative is irrepressible. Her mother showed me “Perfect Parrot” painted at school. What did I think? My response might have included the word “exquisite.” But it was not a matter of what I thought. It was what I wanted to know. “Josephine, what was in your mind when you painted this? Who did you paint it for? What made you choose those colours? Why did you put the line around the edge? Why did you call it “Perfect Parrot” when I can’t see a parrot?” “Don’t know!” She laughed and skipped away. You first saw her potential at talkingbeautifulstuff.com.

Mercer’s Dance

Posted on by
2

Joyce Mercer (1896 to 1965) is known from the golden age of illustrated children’s books. Her major works included Grimm’s Fairytales in 1920 and the Classic Fairytales of Hans Christian Andersen in 1935. The Art Deco influences in all her work are clear. She would have seen and admired the work of Alphonse Mucha and Arthur Rackham among many others. This was the post-World War I era in which children were nourished by stories of parallel existences suffused with hope and innocence all populated by wizards, princes, fairies and elves. The good and gentle would triumph. It was an era that would later be dashed away by World War II.

Mercer's Dance 1

“The Dance” was painted sometime in the 1930’s. It has not been reproduced in any publication. The beautifully executed clean ink lines and poster-style composition are what we would expect from Joyce Mercer. Typically, the execution of the expressive hands of each figure is exquisite. However, is it just another beautifully depicted dream-scene of two men vying for the hand of a beautiful maiden? Or does it tell us much more about Mercer herself?

Mercer's Dance 2

The figures are playing out a scene of a play that can only be acted in the dreams of the viewer. The young females are smooth-faced, expressionless, pubescent and innocent. There is a sadness to the way each is posed differently for the beginning of the dance; the scene waits for the central figure in white to accept the invitation to dance with one of her two suitors. The other’s jealousy bites. But there is nothing gallant or romantic here; only an all-pervasive distasteful feeling of cunning. You really don’t want her to dance with this calculating dandy. The older men – the drummer, the fiddler and the jester – have seen it all and know how the dance will be played out. The end of the dance will mark the beginning of the end of innocence.

Mercer's Dance 3

Dare one propose that “The Dance” represents Joyce Mercer’s binary existence? Was the world she lived in spiritually her make-believe world? Could the real world only corrupt and pollute the impossible beauty that she had illustrated and inhabited over the years? Is she the central figure in white?

Joyce Mercer was a contemporary of my grandmother at art school. I may have met her very briefly when I was very young. If I met her now I would have only one question: “Miss Mercer, do you believe there are fairies at the bottom of your garden?” I have no doubt she would answer in the affirmative.

Photos by Ross Coupland