Winter Barn

This painting was done as part of a project to depict the natural and human heritage of the country in which I live. I chose subjects which have been in existence for at least 100 years. In the case of the human heritage subjects, barns, old fences, farm houses, etc., every one has been wiped out by development since I painted it.

I did this painting only a few years after being an abstract painter. The elements of the picture are combined in a fairly formal way, perhaps related to the rectangular paintings of Mondrian. Although it is quite flat and apparently simple, all of the objects are carefully placed to work together pictorially. The sheep are not sentimentalized but give a fairly warm, organic counterpoint to the straight lines of the barn.

Although I have placed the elements for artistic reasons, I want to give the effect of a casual and commonplace occurrence. This moment should seem to be the result of physics, chemistry, biology and history, which have all come together to produce this combination forms, colours and textures.