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When my daughter moved to Brighton I knew it was inevitable I would use it as an excuse to paint the sea front and especially the West Pier again after a seventeen year gap. The effect of light off the sea, for the most part breaking up the girdered underpinnings of the old pier, was a compelling subject. I was working in London then and caught the train down to Brighton when business was slack and grabbed a taxi to the front. There, working in black crayon on large sheets of paper and in colour oil pastels on a much smaller scale, I concentrated on the pier in many weathers. My return visits in these last years took me back to my old subject. Firstly to see whether despite its sad delapidation and virtual destruction there was anything there to paint. There was. The pier had lost the solidity of its superstructure which had given it the look of a neglected music hall facade or a giant empty palace waiting for the return of a royal household. From a painting point of view it was still full of potential - not evoking a past age which the mass of its exotic buildings had promised - but for the drama of a huge skeleton picked clean by the sea. The structure still hinted at a grandeur lost but this time beyond rejuvenation and restoration. The ruins, like any classical ruins around the Mediterranean still acted as a focus and a catalyst for recording the alchemy of light. My recent pictures of the pier have been done in cold rough weather with little time or inclination for nostalgic reflection. The effect is stark.
My second interest, apart from returning to a favourite subject was to see if seventeen years of painting had in some way developed my vision and perhaps make clear a change of style or attitude. As well as painting the West Pier, I have also taken the new pier with its lively living qualities as a second subject. Not just for comparison but certainly for a change of mood from sad to happy excitement of Brighton’s sea and light.
Nick Schlee
Summer 2006 |
