TREVOR NEWTON New Work
No 5, Blenheim Crescent, Notting Hill, London, W11 2EE Tuesday 1st—Sunday 6th December 2009
Although the subjects of the drawings and paintings in this exhibition are predominantly English or European - cathedral fronts, the interiors of great houses and palaces etc. - the works themselves were actually created in a very different environment; a tin shack deep in the Australian Bush! Let me explain. My aim in what I do is to recreate the feelings that architecture arouses in me; excitement, awe, surprise, delight. I don‟t make detailed sketches of buildings on the spot, but jot down a few scribbled notes which I later augment from memory to recreate my impressions on paper. I love spontaneity and when I‟m working never make any preliminary outlines in pencil but start drawing straightaway in dark, indelible Indian ink. Many other materials are then resorted to for various effects and are applied with great rapidity: wax crayon, watercolour, several other types of ink, coloured pencil, chalk, gouache and even such eccentric substances as salt, transparent boot polish, correction fluid, household bleach and hairspray. My working method is extremely messy and rapid. A painting is always completed in a single „sitting‟, whether it takes twenty minutes or twenty hours. During that time ink and paint are scrabbled, spattered and scraped and the whole drawing is occasionally even run under a shower to blend, blur and expose various layers. That‟s where my Australian shack comes in. Over the years, dozens of shirts, pairs of trousers, curtains, carpets and wallpapered surfaces have been spattered The Artist at work. with ink and paint during the course of my work. A few years ago I acquired a little hilltop site from some friends in Queensland where, with their help, I built (if that‟s the word) with my own hands a tin shack based around an old caravan. There is no electricity, and candles and oil lamps are all I have by way of lighting. Water comes by gravitation down a pipe from a tank 130 metres away and is heated by the rays of the sun. My stove is an old oil drum and my loo a pumpaction, 1950s Australian naval contraption connected to an ingenious cess-pit arrangement. The whole place cost £400 to build, including the price of the caravan (a snip at £165). I do most of my drawing and painting in three-month bursts sitting on the „verandah‟ of my hut where I can paint naked if I wish and can spill, drop, dribble and throw as much ink, paint and household bleach as I like without ever bothering about ruining a shirt or staining the parquet. That‟s my studio, basically, and if I fancy a break from work I have delightful views out over the Pacific in one direction and to the peaks of the Great Dividing Range in the other. I don‟t draw Australian subjects for sale, but over the years have kept voluminous illustrated journals of my scores of thousands of miles of travel around the Australian Outback; these provide me with happy memories when I am back experiencing the damp delights of an English winter, or summer for that matter! Trevor Newton
St Pancras Hotel Staircase Fantasy. 52 by 40 cms.
The Library, Queenâ€&#x;s College, Oxford. 40 by 52 cms.
Venetian Nocturne. 40 by 52cms.
The Gallery, Syon House. 25 by 36 cms.
Interior at Hatfield House. 20 by 38 cms.
Rome. 52 by 40 cms.
Roman Fountain. 50 by 42 cms.
Oxford by Moonlight. 18 by 24 cms.
Drumlanrig Castle. 28 by 36 cms.
“Mr Newton‟s aim is not to render a building with painstaking accuracy but to capture its spirit - its sheer magic. The resulting works are intensely dramatic, even theatrical.” Country Life August 2009
“He manages to combine the frivolous and the Baroque in a curious and most engaging manner; Osbert Lancaster meets Tiepolo.” Stephen Fry.
“Trevor Newton has developed over the last few years into one of the most individual, lively and atmospheric of all English recorders of buildings and interiors. His work has a vivacious and spontaneous quality with a memorable handling of line and mass, conveyed through unexpected colours and textures. He will become a cult figure.” Professor David Wadkin of The University of Cambridge.
For more information on the work of Trevor Newton please get in touch with: Nicholas Bowlby, Owl House, Poundgate, East Sussex. TN22 4DE. 01892 667809. info@nicholasbowlby.co.uk. www.nicholasbowlby.co.uk.
For more information on the work of Trevor Newton please get in touch with: Nicholas Bowlby, Owl House, Poundgate, East Sussex. TN22 4DE. 01892 667809. Mobile: 07831 255691 info@nicholasbowlby.co.uk. www.nicholasbowlby.co.uk.