DAVID TRESS
Oak. The Time of the Silage Mixed Media on Paper 68 x 81 cm.
David Tress: Landscape as Palimpsest Most of the pain�ngs and drawings that I make are characterised by their very obvious, and vigorously textured, paint and paper surfaces. This way of working has developed gradually over many years and has to do with my wish – or rather, something stronger than just a wish; more a gut feeling – that I want to make pain�ngs which, in their physical presence, have some parallel to the physical immediacy of the actual landscapes that I go out to draw. The sheer excitement of visi�ng certain places where the landscape may be spread out in front of me, charged with life by movement of sun, shadow, cloud and rain, is something that I want to convey to the best of my ability. To achieve this vigour I find it necessary to work and rework a pain�ng many �mes with layers of paint and collage – using a very thick and high quality watercolour paper – and one of the quali�es resul�ng from this way of working is that the finished pain�ngs show the ‘history’ of their making in the dense pa�ern of brush strokes, and the web of scraped, scored and collaged marks. Earlier marks may be hidden by later paint strokes, or perhaps half-hidden in the later addi�ons of paint. One way of looking at this is as a ‘palimpsest’. What is a palimpsest? Strictly speaking a palimpsest is a half erased image of wri�ng or drawing that occurs when a medieval manuscript – usually on vellum – is cleaned off for re-use. Despite the cleaning, the original text is never completely erased, and s�ll shows as a ‘ghost’ image hidden behind later script. The parallel with the way of making pain�ngs that I have described is clear, and there are more ways in which the word ‘palimpsest’ can be applied not just to pain�ngs, but to landscape itself. Humans have been making marks on the land for several thousands of years – paths, roads, ditches, field boundaries, earthworks – all of these create physical marks which remain stamped to varying degrees on the landscape for millennia. Some of the earlier marks will be half obscured, other later marks will be much clearer. The idea that these marks form a sort of landscape manuscript from which the history of the landscape can be read came increasingly to the fore in the later nineteenth century and
increasingly to the fore in the later nineteenth century and developed further in the twen�eth century. Rudyard Kipling, in his poem ‘Puck of Pook’s Hill’ published in 1906, describes the series of marks on the landscape of Sussex where he lived which, if correctly read, show the history and pre-history of human occupa�on there. In the 1920s the archaeologist OGS Crawford made groundbreaking discoveries using the new technique of aerial photography to see otherwise invisible marks on the landscape made by human occupa�on. In March 1934 the archaeological periodical ‘An�quity’, which was edited by Crawford, included an ar�cle by H J Randall in which the author used the word ‘palimpsest’ to describe English landscape. So landscape as palimpsest parallels pain�ng as palimpsest and is a descrip�on rich in sugges�on and depth.
David Tress, 2020
Stourhead: The Pantheon Mixed Media on Paper 32 x 39 cm.
Cloud, Sun, Above Porlock Mixed Media on Paper 46 x 60 cm.
BIg Summer (To The South) Garn Fawr Graphite on Paper 41 x 59 cm.
Kishorn River Graphite on Paper 39 x 59 cm.
Fes�val (Offering) Mixed Media on Paper 53 x 62 cm .
Far Liatach (Sun, Shdow) Mixed Media on Paper 30 x 39 cm.
Align So Bright Mixed Media on Paper 30 x 39 cm.
Bu�ercup Fields Mixed Media on Paper 47 x 64 cm.
Stourhead: Bridge and Pantheon Mixed Media on Paper 33 x 41 cm.
Stourhead: Apollo Mixed Media on Paper 30 x33 39xcm Stourhead. Temple Temple of Floraofand Bridge Mixed Media on Paper 41 cm.
A Day in Autumn Graphite on Paper 73 x 77 cm.
Looking (Fading Day) Mixed Media on Paper 36 x 45 cm.
Earliest Spring Mixed Media on Paper 58 x 59 cm.
Liatach in Cloud, Sun II Mixed Media on Paper 30 x 39 cm.
Great Durnford Mixed Media on Paper 29 x 39 cm.
Old Dilton, Wiltshire Mixed Media on Paper 29 x 38 cm.
Big Wet Cloud, Fields Below Dunkery Beacon Mixed Media on Paper 50 x 60 cm.
Light on the Mountain Mixed Media on Paper 31 x 49 cm.
A Wet Day (Walking at Caerfai) Mixed Media on Paper 60 x 85 cm.
Uignabhal and Clisham Graphite on Paper 30 x 39 cm.
Rain Squall and Sudden Light (Beinn Bhan) Mixed Media on Paper 45 x 61 cm.
Big Sky South, Dunkery Beacon Mixed Media on Paper 59 x 78 cm.
Harvest Landscape. Rain Coming I Mixed Media on Paper 36 x 46 cm.
Big Summer, Pen Bari Mixed Media on Paper 45 x 61 cm.
Big Summer, Garn Fawr Mixed Media on Paper 41 x 59 cm.
Exmoor. Driven Clouds and Blown Rag of Blue Mixed Media on Paper 52 x 61 cm.
Winter Light (Border Landscape) I Mixed Media on Paper 46 x 61 cm.
Winter Light (Border Landscape) II Mixed Media on Paper 42 x 62 cm.
Light Passing, Beinn Bhan Mixed Media on Paper 31 x 44 cm.
DAVID TRESS Selected Exhibi�ons Beaux Arts, Bath (2002 - 2020) Messums, London 2020 Chasing Sunblime Light Touring Exhibi�on, Arts Council of Wales (2008 - 2010) Boundary Gallery London (1995-2011) West Wales Arts Centre Fishguard (1984 - 2011) Albany Gallery Cardiff (1993 - 2011) Victoria Gallery Bath (2010) Cri�c’s Choice, the Art Shop, Abergavenny (2006) Landscapes of Wales, Na�onal Botanic Gardens of Wales (2006) Clwyd Theatre Cymru, Mold (2006) The Discerning Eye, Mall Galleries London (2003, 2005) Denbighshire Arts Travelling Exhibi�on (2005) Drawings Travelling Exhibi�on incl. Na�onal Library of Wales, Aberystwyth Midlands Arts Centre, Birmingham, Guildhall Gallery, London (2003 - 2005) Farming and the Welsh Landscape, the Royal Welsh Agricultural Society (2004) Oriel Plas Glyn-y-Weddw, Llanbedrog, Gwynedd (1988-2001) Museum of Modern Art, Wales (2001, 2003) Hereford City Art Gallery (2003) Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Swansea (2001) Garter Lane Arts Centre, Waterford, Republic of Ireland (2000) Bri�sh Library, London (1999) Mountain, Wolverhampton Art GAllery (1999) Landmarks, Na�onal Museum of Wales (1998) Invited Ar�st, Eigse Carlow Arts Fes�val, Republic of Ireland (1998) Five Ar�sts from Wales, Eleonore Austerer Gallery, San Francisco (1993) Nature Conservancy Council, Travelling Exhibi�on (1990 -1991) Pembrokeshire Ar�sts Travelling Exhibiiton (1984)
Collec�ons The Na�onal Library of Wales Na�onal Museums and Galleries of Wales The Guildhall Art Gallery, City of London Clare Hall, Cambridge The Museum of Nodern Art, Wales The Contempoary Art Society for Wales Pembrokeshire Museums Ceridigion Museum Awards Welsh Ar�st of the Year Drawing Award (2006) The Discerning Eye Regional Prize for Wales (2003) Wakelin Award (2001) W C W James Lauditory Award (1999) D & AD ‘Yellow Pencil’ award for Millennium Stamp (1999) Selected Press The Spectator (18 Nov 2006) The Times (2 Feb. 2005) The Spectator (22 Jan 2005) The Times (3 Dec 2003) The New Welsh Review (Spring 2003) BBC Radio Wales (‘First Hand’ 9 July 2002)
Cover: Light in the Corrie Mixed Media on Paper 34 x 51 cm.
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