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All Embracing, oil on canvas © Pip Dickens
Black Paintings
Though black, these paintings shimmer with
refracted light in order to create their
'colour'. In a wholly perverse manner they
insist on the presence of light in order
to be read. Notions of the Baroque underpin these black
oil paitings with particular reference to
the light--dark allegories that abound in
literature eg. Milton's 'Paradise Lost' and
the tenebrist/chiaroscuro artists - for example
Caravaggio and Zurburan. They also draw on
the music of the period in particular librettos
from operas by Handel, Rameau and Purcell.
The titles of the works provide clues to
some references. For example:-.
"Retiros" is a word once used to describe a Baroque
garden - usually a small hideaway - somewhere
for an individual to escape and contemplate.
"La Folie de la Vision" is a phrase coined by a French theorist
to describe the madness of vision which encompasses
Baroque notions of the visual experience.
"Legerdemain" is usually used to describe trickery
and slight of hand, but in it's literal translation
means 'a light touch'."Vapourish Fancy" refers to literary sources, in particular,
Daniel Defoe's ' Roxanne' in which the heroine's state of mind is
described as 'vapourish fancy' - that of
hysterical imagination - or the 'vapours'
as they were commonly known."Acanthus" is a flower of legend that never dies
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