Michael Gage

After trying to simplify the elements of the landscape in my paintings, and producing some quite abstract images, I wanted to see if I could put that idea of simplicity into a realistic image.

So I chose to paint the most humble thing I could find: a potato.



Acrylic on canvas, 15 x 15 cm.

Another painting in the series of simplifying the landscape.



"Farm". Acrylic on canvas, 50 x 50 cm.

This one is loosely based on the fields round a farm near Lewes, and the road leading to it. Not that that matters: the idea here is to create an image on the balancing point between representational and abstract. I've tipped up the landscape, so that the horizon (and the sky) has disappeared, to show the patterns of the natural elements of fields and trees and earth, integrated with the manmade elements of building and hedges and roads.

On the one hand, this is a fairly realistic representation of the fields around this farm; at the same time, they create an abstract pattern: one which you probably couldn't produce if you just sourced it from your imagination.

Here's the first of the paintings that will be in my exhibition at the Hop Gallery, Lewes 13 - 25 March.



Harbour. Acrylic on canvas, 50 x 50 cm.

Still working towards simplifying the landscape. As you might notice, the picture has changed dramatically from the early stages. Actually, it's changed so much, I can't remember which of those three paintings is underneath this final version.

Managed to do a print using only two colours*. It's hard work trying to recognise that you don't need to capture every nuance of shade and light, or every detail of what you're drawing. Sometimes, the image is stronger for what you leave out.

*Arguably, it's three colours, because the white of the paper is an important part of the design.



Two stage reduction linocut, 10 x 10cm. With apologies for the punning title.

Here's another linocut that I have been working on that uses both the patterns of the landscape, and the effect of using multiple images in the same print. The images here are all views from Firle Beacon.


Four colour reduction linocut, 16 x 16cm.

I like the effect of the multiple images, and some of the shapes have been simplified towards that point where you can't quite tell if it's a landscape. But the colours (blue sky above green grass) give the game away. And I've ended up with four colours, which is too many for what I am trying to do...

I have a new exhibition opening on 13 March, at the Hop Gallery in Lewes.


Click here for more information.

If you'd like an invitation to the private view, please leave your details in the Comments below.

I've done some more work on the three landscape paintings that I started the other day.



This one's got more definition, but it still needs more.


This one has more definition too, and there is a sense of distance emerging.



This one's still loose in the foreground, but oops, those cliffs are already too realistic. I don't want this to end up like every other picture of the Seven Sisters.

Acrylic on canvas, 20 x 20cm.

Here is the first stage of some landscape paintings that I am working on. There's a long way to go yet.

Each acrylic on canvas, 50 x 50cm.

Acrylic on canvas, 20 x 20cm.