Good Hope by Graeme Black

I fell in love with Graeme’s first works in oils and charcoal, which he exhibited at his ‘Trunk’ show in 2021 at the Messum Gallery in Harrogate. When I visited his Yorkshire studio, I too was blown away by the rugged beauty of the Dales and its majestic trees. So, 'Good Hope', his latest project of inks on paper, inspired by a totally different landscape and light, was both familiar but intriguing and very exciting. The work is very different in ink and water; a natural medium that flows through and over the bark. It is a remarkable collection, influenced by his mastery of colour (as a fashion designer) but also more assured - you can’t rework in ink like oil paint and you capture light and colour in a more abstracted way so the result seems more immediate, more experimental and more fluid. I bought a very large charcoal work from him four years ago … and I will be adding a new ink on paper version to my collection!?

Having grown up in Southern Africa I knew the trees that provided the much needed shade and beautiful wood, like the coastal pines, the eucalyptus and the milkwood tree but I never imagined at fourteen years old, I would be bringing a forest from the Cape of Good Hope to Mayfair. The life size works on paper are site specific in the sense that they could only be painted from his studio on the Cape of Good Hope. Like the botanical artists and illustrators of the 18th and 19th century, Graeme spent last winter recording, with ink and water on paper, the trunks and barks of these beautiful trees that surrounded the house they were renting. With Graeme’s new show the beauty of his colours are touched by the African sun … and there is a freedom of mark making that has created a much broader impression than the trunk or bark of a tree; the work has become a landscape of colour, form and light.

Good Hope by Graeme Black

'My creative practice in Yorkshire is firmly based on painting with Oils on canvas drawing inspiration from the varied woodland landscapes around my home Wood End near Semerwater in the Yorkshire Dales. My studio in a converted 18th Century cow barn is the perfect location for the large scale works that have been central to my practice these last years.

While a beautiful place to live, winters in the Dales are cold, wet and above all dark and my desire for a strong bright light has drawn me to spend time in South Africa during the northern winters. I have been exploring the Western Cape for many years but in 2023 I was able to spend a few months there in a wonderful house on Kommetjie beach almost at the tip of the Cape of Good Hope. Wanting to paint en plein air as much as possible the inner court yard of the house allowed me shelter from the ever present strong south easterly winds while a small out building converted into a perfect studio in which to work. But the problem of painting in oils in a foreign land with limited time ... a long drying schedule, the transport of large stretched canvases, led me to start to explore a different medium, that of coloured inks on paper.

At first this new process was a challenge as I had to give myself up to the vagaries of a water born medium that acted differently at different temperatures and on different paper qualities but slowly I began to master this transient / elusive technique. Relishing in the possibilities of working with stronger, fresher colours that absorb and spread when in contact with the paper I began to see in the marks I was making the familiar patterns and textures of the remarkable trees around me on the cape. Light and colour ebbed and flowed allowing me to create three dimensional forms. The sun drenched forests of giant pines, ancient oaks and the often wild fire charred eucalyptus in which I took daily hikes had become strong inspiration that translated so well to this new found medium.

The Good Hope series had been born of this necessity to work fast, in smaller portable formats and above all in strong light. It gave me a new creative freedom to work in this way and I feel this has been borne out in the vibrant body of work that I am showing at the Connolly gallery. A testament to the strength, colour and joy of the Africa I have come to love.'

- Graeme Black