TALKING PICTURES
Paintings should have something to say. They have stories to tell of time, of place, or of feelings and fantasies. They talk of quality of light, of movement and reflection. They tell of days in the sun and days gone by. And if you look closely they might tell you a little about me. As an artist I strive to find a visual language to say something meaningful about my subjects and something interesting to the paintings’ viewers. That language may vary from painting to painting, subject to subject. It may be through the use of colour, brush-stroke, content or design but the purpose remains to describe a scene, an environment or an emotion and to convey that story to the viewer. With my paintings the story is seldom simply about how the subject appears, (albeit the café or marketplace, the canal or pond may be beautiful in themselves), but what can be expressed through the treatment of the scene – what it feels like to sit in that Parisian café watching the world go by; the heat, bustle and scent of the Provençal market; the timeless sense evoked by sun-framed oarsmen on the Grand Canal or to witness the embers of the day fade over the reflections in a lilypond. But the stories needn’t be purely a representation or description of things seen and experienced directly. Some of my contemporary still life pieces talk of connections with, perhaps, late 19th century painters in Paris, and of their influences – Van Gogh’s sunflowers, Matisse’s doves, Picasso’s Saltimbanques. It is an opportunity to retell parts of stories from the past but in my own words, with my own characters and plot – not so much a still life of objects on a table but more characters in a tableau, a short play to be staged in the viewer’s mind - a conversation on canvas between the present and the past. I hope you take the time to look and listen to what my paintings are trying to say. You might hear something new or perhaps just a distant echo, a memory of a story of your own. It will hopefully always be something pleasant!
Jack B Morrocco DA, FRSA
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