James Naughton's Painting - February 2008

By Justine Gaunt

It seems almost too obvious to say it, but landscape is key to James Naughton’s work. For the many years I have known his work and longer, he has painted sweeping, breathtaking landscapes, devoid of figures, but always with the hand of humanity present in field margins and hedgerows.

 

Strangely, though, I sometimes think the landscape is incidental to James’ work. I mean that it would not surprise me to find him painting in an abstract or non-figurative style, as I know it would not surprise him, either. This is, however, something out of his control. What he paints and how he paints it could be explained as a transcendental experience. James taps into the universal, and what he finds there is transferred to his work surface. For now, and who knows, perhaps for always, James paints landscapes.

 

What his work does is touch something infinite, perhaps even spiritual that he finds in the landscape but that I suspect ultimately exists within himself. ‘What comes about is as surprising to me as for anyone looking at my paintings’ he says. There is a sense of something indefinable and mysterious in each of these landscapes, possibly because they are concurrently familiar and unfamiliar. The fields and trees and sky are all known to us, but as individual places these landscapes, like some parallel universe, are only accessible to James and then to us through his painting. Amongst a great spectrum of influences James listens to the music of Icelandic band Sigur Ros. He enjoys the writing of Haruki Murakami Tolkien, Pullman, watching films by Tim Burton, and like them, his work deals with an almost supernatural landscape, with a language that is melodic and beautiful – more so due to its mystery.

Daily walks in nearby Lancashire countryside allow James Naughton time to make subtle observations. ‘When I’m out walking, I’m not looking for entire landscapes to paint. I concentrate on instances rather than images that can be pinned down. For example, I may find a pile of leaves transformed by the conditions, transformed by the light and these will inspire a fleeting sensation in me that I ultimately know is unique.’ The longer he remains in this simple working routine of walking and painting, the more his awareness of and sensitivity to these moments develops.

‘From there, it is about recreating those sensations in my work.’

James brings these observations and moments of insight into his painting, where they instinctively find their place as pockets of light, a particular intensity of colour or the angle of a hill. Over and over, he paints sky, earth, elements, attending to each cloud, each rock, each tree, each shard of light with an undiminishing sense of wonder. ‘Things come out of the blue’ he says, ‘as long as you’re open to them.’

 

More and more, his painting has become an act of meditation, the landscape a conduit for this process. In preparing himself to meet paint with surface, James tries to free his mind from outside thoughts. ‘I try to forget everything. That way I realise the potential of the painting so much more than when I’m too very conscious of what is happening.’

 

Ultimately, James Naughton as artist is aware of the vulnerability of his position. His process dictates that elements of technicality and composition are used instinctively rather than with the involvement of any element of planning. It is this openness and instincts that makes James’ paintings spontaneous and free. ‘It’s my intention to connect with something I can’t quite explain. I’m constantly searching for something new and different.’

 

And where over the last ten years or more James has exclusively painted landscapes, if one were to look at all that work together in one room, a movement, a sense of change would be apparent. For James, these subtle changes are highly significant, and greatly occupy his thoughts. In the last five years, surfaces have become freer, with more scratching and stronger brush strokes, skies darker, a sense of foreboding to be found in the landscape through use of darker tone. ‘At that time, darkness and abstraction pleased me, and I thought it was something I’d explore further.’

 

However, in about February 2007, a new shift came about. Again, it was not an active decision, but during the course of just one painting James started putting more paint and more colour into his work. This has manifested itself in the use of intense and vibrant colour, but that is not to say that there is not the same sense of mystery and drama within the work. Says James, ‘My nature tends towards darker elements but I’m achieving the same results using colour. I have always been fascinated by light, but painting in this way has made me more aware of the possibilities for rich depth in the darker areas of  piece ’

 

James Naughton’s coming of age as a painter has also been reflected in his own attitude to the work. Past doubts have been reconciled. Now he feels at one with what it is he has to create and is content to let the landscape-as-muse guide him. In this way he is happy to be playful within his work, and has formed a deeper relationship with it. ‘It’s about dropping the fence of self consciousness and literally following your instincts,’ he says. Referring to his current use of intense colour he says, “Before, I might have assumed that these colours would not have a part to play in my paintings, but I have really enjoyed the process of using them to heighten the drama and contrast”

 

Where previously he strove to complete each work in one sitting, regarding second sittings merely as opportunities for adding definition or detail, he now works more than once on each painting. ‘Now I’m working on the whole surface again, whether with subtle washes or a whole reworking.’ The second sitting is, he says, not subsidiary to the first, but just as crucial to the finished painting, and just as spontaneous and intuitive. This development has led to a body of work with even greater depth and texture.

 

These recent paintings, with more paint, more colour, show James’ evolving relationship, not only with his subject matter, but also with the paint. ‘My relationship with the paint changes all the time. There are moments when I am tempted to think I know what’s going on in the work, but paradoxically the only certainty I have is that uncertainty will steer my path.’

Many thanks to Justine Gaunt for her permission for this to be published on the website.