The paintings of Neil Canning seem to be evolving somewhere in that area of tension between figurative and abstract art.
Gestural abstraction in the sweeps and swathes of thick, smudged and glazed patches of colour often have an urgent, expressive quality. These strokes of colour are not only evident of the action of the material on canvas, but the paint
appears to evoke the pictorial techniques used by artists to describe the powerful aspects of the natural world and its weather systems which we can find in the epic narrative paintings
of the nineteenth century. In a relatively small painting such as Shine 2006 there seems to be a response to the scale, dynamics and textures of the elements encompassed in what is,
ostensibly, an image brought into being through intuitive abstraction.
As Canning continues to evolve his language of forms, he identifies an affinity with a number of modernist artist who were working in St Ives, particularly Peter Lanyon,
Patrick Heron and Barbara Hepworth and, like so many artists before him, works through formal relationships inspired by key works of those artists. he draws inspiration from the
air and sea, creating an idea of beauty through an emotional engagement in the classic tradition that any relationship between artist and viewer would entail. In many of his
recent paintings seen in his studio in St Ives, Canning has constructed a formal, visual abstract language using amorphous forms such a roughly drawn circles and spots, explosions
of colour and intersecting lines to suggest landscape structures affected by great winds and the atmospheres.
It is a world in constant flux - a moving world - in a ceaseless state of gleam and glow, air and transparency. In the combination of shape, line, colour and gesture, Canning,
like his illustrious predecessors in the St Ives School, considers the nature of space, manipulating the reading of colour and line as form in relation to it and the transient
realm of the natural world.
Neil Canning is an artist who is not afraid to experiment and change, to move into and occupy new territories of expression.
He set out as a painter of landscapes, whose brilliant colour and sweeping forms registered an acutely felt sense of the purely formal relationships discernible in the ever-changing
circumstances of the external world: of a headland's curved silhouette to the steep sweep of the flat bay-line; of the aquatic blues and turquoises of sea to the ariel blues of
high skies; of waterfall spume to cloud streak; of sea swell and surfer's wave to the steepening profile of a dark green inland hill.
The perception of similarity in difference - the recognition of resemblance not only between the forms and colours of natural objects, but of the correspondences of shape
and formation between things permanent and things fleeting, between static earth forms and the transient configurations of water, air and fire - inevitably led him towards
a kind of abstraction. This liberation of his imagery from the immediately visible facts of the external world enabled Canning to indulge to the full his predilection for high
intensely saturated hues, artificial densities of colour, to deploy a wilder and freer whiplash line and arabesque, and to exploit the unexpected and accidental effects of surface
incident.
Canning has never taken his eyes off the visible world, or lost his excitement at those elements of shape and colour, atmosphere and movement that have been his essential
subject matter from the beginning. But I sense now in his work a new definition of purpose, an intensified response to the hidden dynamics in nature.
Abstraction has paradoxically freed him to go beyond the enjoyment of immediate formal effects, however original. His art is reaching for something other than a
brilliant reflection of the phenomenal world, simplified to the petrol colours and iridescence of pastel, the dense stain of gouache, the grainy blacks of the charcoal line.
He is discovering thrilling analogies to the flow and flux within things. His recent work presents us with signs and equivalents of the world's ceaseless variegation,
the light and colour, shine, shimmer and shadow that register its invisible energies, he is catching in the lightning flash of line and quick splash and splatter the
suddenness of unexpected natural events. Exploiting the textural subtleties of oil paint and the pitch and resonance of screen-printing inks, his work penetrates the
appearances of nature, and seeks to reveal the unending impetus that creates the phenomenal patterns and forms of the visible.
Neil Canning: Changing Tides - New Millennium Gallery. 21st March - 22nd April 2008
A painter of the metaphysical, Neil Canning is in tune with the Cornish landscape. He seeks out its hidden depths, lines and curves: the places where the sea meets the land, where the sky meets the horizon and where the sun and the moon generate light. Every painting in his latest exhibition at the New Millennium Gallery is a triumph of balance, energy and motion, and the purity of his palette expresses his clarity of vision. Visiting at the beginning of March, and the little red dots which pepper the gallery walls are testament to his considerable reputation, as is the visitors’ book, which is filled with glowing comments.
"My starting point is nature", Canning says. "I used to paint figurative landscapes en plein air but now my paintings only refer obliquely to the landscape.
I am recording my experiences, expressing the essence and mood of a particular moment."
Canning’s work is paradoxical. The large physical impasto gestures and strong brushstrokes which slash their way through the element in his canvasses,
verge on being aggressive yet these he balances and softens with minute fine marks, curved lines and tiny dots and gentle swirls. Primordial elements are evoked,
a shaded ochre land mass takes on the full force of a thermal current or a tidal surge in 'Nature’s Drama', or the wind as it rushes through the top half of 'Altitude',
a spectacular large blue painting whose grey and white core shape is offset by a thin yellow curved line and a single signature dot.
Elsewhere, external factors appear, the vivid red of a fluttering lifeguard’s flag appears in 'Coast: Summer Breeze', a painting inspired by Porthmeor Beach.
"I painted in Wales for ten years and formed my vocabulary there, it was an open book for me - not many people were painting there at all", explains Canning. "My move to Cornwall had a tremendous emotional impact on my work. It is not simply the light, there is a definite feeling of being on the edge which signifies space and a loss of gravity".
Indeed, his current work has an aerial quality to it, as if it were painted from somewhere hovering high above the land, in a place where air thermals swirl and gravity is defied. Yet elsewhere, as Canning says, a strong u-shaped border appears, reflecting the small coves and natural harbours which are scattered along the Cornish cliff. These shapes have a comforting feel to them, intensified by the warmth of their colours, like the deep ochre seen in 'Coast: Shelter'.
"Since moving to Relubbus where I am surrounded by inland landscape, trees and soft valleys, my view of the sea has become more focused. Different tones and hues are creeping into my work, there are a lot more greys and whites. But sometimes I use an intense colour or shape, and I think, no, that is too much, but then I see it in nature, the lurid green of lichen on trees, the sharp angles of the granite stones and the changing colours of the seasons; the autumn’s rich ambers and golds juxtapose the spring’s soft blues and greens... Of course, during period before an exhibition, every waking second is spent thinking about the work in progress. It is really difficult to concentrate on anything else. This is a very intense period and my sense of colour and form seem heightened".
David Falconer who owns the New Millennium Gallery says, "This is Canning’s fifth show with my gallery. I first saw his work about eight years ago when he was on the cusp
of becoming abstract, a brave move. His highly successful earlier work tended to be semi-figurative landscapes with the occasional figure.
Because I have a policy of nurturing my artists, I have been able to watch and enjoy his progress and development. This current show definitely marks a moving on.
I think he has been working closer to his canvases because he hasn't had the studio space (Canning is currently having a new studio built) and this has given his work an
intensity and slightly earthier quality".
Neil Canning was first selected for the Royal Academy Summer Show in 1981, and has exhibited regularly there ever since. At the age of 23 he became the youngest artist ever elected an Associate of the Royal Society of British Artists. He won the Bronze Medal at the Paris Salon in 1994.
