Guy Beggs

On The Edge: Beachy Head

Guy Beggs — Wed, 16 May 2012 15:17:33 +0000

In my earlier figurative work a particular place was often used as a setting for an explicit narrative. Although increasingly abstract in nature, recent work continued to deal with a sense of place, real or imagined, but without any overt narrative. Particular places continued to suggest figurative narratives but these were not pursued as they would have been at odds with current work. This unexpected return to figuration was instigated by recent psychologically disturbing life events, and drew upon a long stored image. In order to create the vertiginous reality of standing close to this notoriously dangerous spot it was necessary to combine more than one viewpoint. This wider perspective attempts to create a sense of the experience of being there and the inclusion of a figure to provide an ambiguous narrative.

On The Edge:Beachy Head Oil on board 170x74cms

Beachy Head: Sentinel

Guy Beggs — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 15:11:53 +0000

Having spent some time looking down at the ground for inspiration, this March I felt an overwhelming urge to change my viewpoint. Some years ago I did a series of large charcoal drawings of Beachy Head as studies for paintings that didn’t materialise. Thinking about how I might deal with a surface on a grander scale I decided to re-visit Beachy Head to see if it might provide a suitable motif. The location, a site of awesome beauty with psychological resonance, provoked a number of ideas so I returned to the studio and started this initial painting.

Beachy Head:Sentinel Oil on board 170x74cms

Spring Veil

Guy Beggs — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 11:32:59 +0000

This work in progress is an attempt to deal in paint with thoughts about regeneration through the decay of the previous year: staining and marking the canvas in a much looser way than earlier more careful imitative palimpsests. Daily observations provide a time-full continuum with one layer surviving in memory long after physical decay. Nature’s layering and staining is redolent of the painting process but each painting has to succeed on its own terms and some do and some don’t. More work is needed on this one before that decision can be made.

Spring Veil 91.5x122cms Oil on canvas

The Same Leaves 61×91.5cms Oil on canvas

The same leaves over and over again! They fall from giving shade above To make one texture of faded brown And fit the earth like a leather glove. Robert Frost

Madder Pool

Guy Beggs — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 13:53:38 +0000

Although no Madder Lake pigment was used in this painting the notoriously fugitive rose colour did suggest the title for this latest one to be developed from observations of puddles in the park. Lake pigments are manufactured by precipitating a dye, the madder root in this instance, with an inert binder, usually a metallic salt. Although the word lake derives from lac, a resinous secretion, rather than a body of water, the association of a small puddle with a lake was appealing when part of the interest in this series is with the ambiguities of scale. The binder for the rose madder pigment has to be white and before that metallic salt, chalk, white clay and crushed bones, were used. Crushed twigs and leaves immersed in puddles therefore seemed like another reference to the precious madder root pigment.

Madder Pool 100x140cms Oil on canvas

Leaching Yelow (Dyptych)

Guy Beggs — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 17:45:20 +0000

The observation of soil erosion in a small puddle suggested a leaching of colour caused by one element on another, and a good starting point for a painting. Working in themed series means that I work on a number of paintings at any one time and some are abandoned because they just don’t seem to come together. But others, like this one, are set aside and tantalise with the promise of possible resolution. The advantage of this delay is that with time thought processes can slightly alter or a painting can offer up a solution; this could be a radical overhaul or a slight change of colour,tone or detail, or simply an insistence that the original idea was strong enough after all. After some doubt the original conviction returned sufficiently to press on to completion.

Leaching Yellow (dyptych) 112x133cms Oil on linen

New Digital Prints

Guy Beggs — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 16:11:30 +0000

These prints have been made using a combination of processes which start with an initial study that is used as the starting point for a monotype on glass. The monotype is then used as the starting point for the final digital print.

Birch Wood 25x35cms

Burnt Bush 30x30cms

Red Shadow 30x30cms

Accidental 30x25cms

Red Earth 24x34cms

Orange Run 26.5x34cms

Green Flash 30x33cms

Reeds Cuckmeere 27x40cms

Sketch Book

Guy Beggs — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 13:04:11 +0000

Wanting a break from substance abuse in the studio I have decided to take advantage of the warm Autumn weather to get out into the fresh air with watercolours and a sketchbook…

Breaking – Mixed media on paper 20x28cms

Downscape – Mixed media 20x28cms

Devil’s Dyke – Mixed media 28x20cms

Devil’s Dyke 2 – Mixed media 20x28cms

Chalkpit Sussex 42x59cms Charcoal

Drystone Wall – 20x28cms mixed media

Lowtide Sussex 42x59cms

Reeds – 20x28cms mixed media

Hawthorn Sussex – Mixed media 21x21cms

Sussex Downs

Guy Beggs — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 14:15:27 +0000

It was some time after moving to Sussex that I began to see the Downs as possible subject matter. Initially this landscape of rolling hills seemed too bland. But centuries of man’s mark-making on the surface, together with the ever changing moods began to fascinate. After a break of many years I have once more returned to explore both elements.

Disused Chalkpit Sussex 46x63cms Oil on canvas

Crystal Palace Park

Guy Beggs — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 14:00:32 +0000

The seasonal changes to the surface of the paths continues to provide motifs for a wide range of approaches to paint application like spilling, staining dragging and layering. Chance can surprise or obliterate, some paintings work and some don’t, so knowing when to stop becomes the key decision. If the surface offers no further opportunities the work has to be abandoned;perhaps this one will make it through.

Autumn Path 61x76cms Oil on canvas

Routemasters

Guy Beggs — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 14:44:42 +0000

Another signed reproduction of the 1982 painting Routemasters was ordered this month and the buyer asked me for a history of the original painting. A few of the signed reproductions are still available so here is that history for anyone else who may be interested.

Routemasters 1982 Oil on canvas 110x150cms

In the early 1980s I was working on a series based on observations of daily life on the high street. I would take up a position and simply observe the daily theatre of ordinary lives; brief encounters;entering and leaving shops; walking dogs; tussles with children; crossing the road and boarding and leaving buses. These small dramas could have taken place on almost any high street in the country except of course those involving the iconic Routemasters. After prolonged observation of the arrivals and departures at a bus stop on Chiswick High Road I decided on a composition that would capture both. I divided the canvas exactly in half and with a slight distortion of the advertisement boards was able to show both the arrival of one bus and the departure of another. At that time I was showing at the Piccadilly Gallery in Cork Street, but when the director saw the finished painting he said, “You can’t split a composition in half like that!” I was disappointed by this response so I took it to Fischer Fine Art in St James’ and they offered to include it in a forthcoming show on British Realism. The following year Routemasters was included in a show entitled 8 British Realists at the Louis K Meisel gallery in New York. After prolonged discussions with the The London Transport Museum came to nothing I decided not to show the painting again and it remained in storage until 2010 when it was included in my show Time Passages at the Bigger Picture Gallery.