The Paintings of David Armitage
WHAT DO PAINTINGS MEAN?
Can you turn these marks into words? No you can't. The magic comes from the marks, and art appreciation can be encapsulated in four little words: "Wow, look at that"! The joy of painting and the response to it is a wonderful visual experience which can be re-visited time and time again. Everything else is about everything else.”
David's approach to art and painting is to 'shake the leaves from the trees'. Look at previously conceived ideas and let art speak to you because you shouldn't need words.
The vibrant images on this page speak for themselves: colour, light and form influenced by the artist's early life near the southern Pacific Ocean observing the vagaries of the tides and seasons. Yet Armitage's work is also informed by his passion for classical music, especially the work of Bruckner, Wagner and Sibelius – powerful and at times vaguely disquieting, it hints at a brooding undercurrent.
Tasmanian born David Armitage, an established international artist and children's illustrator is widely regarded as one of the most original exciting and inspirational abstract artists and colourists of his generation and his vibrant, colourful paintings and large-scale canvases are housed in public and private collections across the world. He has also illustrated over 35 best-selling books.
David moved to Melbourne in 1960 where he attended the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, studying art and illustration and lecturing in life and portrait drawing before concentrating on his own career as a painter and scenic artist for a theatre company. After marrying New Zealand born Ronda, he returned to Auckland as the City Art Gallery's Exhibitions Officer and curated international art exhibitions.
There is something of the night about Armitage's paintings – a darkness and complexity of emotions. Like the most powerful music of those composers he loves, his paintings can be mysterious, obscure, but always magical and endlessly fascinating – hinting at the possibilities of evil in the work 'Auto da Fe', yet life-affirming beauty, grace and redemption in 'Giverney'. Good and evil, sanity and madness, salvation or damnation. His art, like the man himself, is full of contradictions.
David welcomes visitors by appointment at any time at his studio at East Hoathly. On show and for sale will be a selection of prints, illustrations, drawings and paintings.
Jean Clark