It seems like an age ago now, but in September of 2020, I was part of the third Earthbound exhibition held at Gudhjem Museum. This post is just a short description of the process involved in preparing and delivering the work I produced for the exhibition – much too late of course, but hopefully this will spur me on to be a more regular blogger throughout 2021…

Earthbound is a very loose collection of five Bornholm-based artists, all of whom take direct or indirect inspiration from Bornholm’s natural environment. Earthbound III would be myself, together with the incredible pots of ceramic artist Eva Brandt, the delicate and shimmering watercolours and prints by Lone Schiøtz, atmospheric oil paintings by Barbara Sørensen and the tactile organic wooden vessels by wood turner Hans Henning Pedersen. We had exhibited together two times before, both at Gudhjem Museum, so this was to be the third act. The previous exhibitions had been very well received, and I was looking forward very much to joining forces with the other ‘Bounders’ and putting my work up on the walls of what I think is Bornholm’s best gallery space.

Right from the start I decided I would produce some large watercolours, larger than I had ever tried before. I was interested in seeing if I could make some gigantic plein air ‘timescape’ paintings, where I would follow the movement of the shadows over the landscape, through the course of a day.

I started off buying a huge roll of Saunders Waterford paper, and cutting off slices. To stretch and prepare the paper, I took it to Bjergebakke Quarry, about a ten minute cycle ride from where I live, were I submerged the paper and let it dry between huge sheets of hardboard. All this happened in August during a very hot period, which meant the paper dried too quickly and buckled a little anyway. I was OK with that.

The first two paintings I completed in Bjergbakke Quarry itself. It is an old granite quarry, very small and local in character, that has been out of use since the 70s. Now it is used for grazing livestock and the owners have kindly built a diving platform, so people can jump into the deep quarry lake. Inside the bowl of the quarry, industrial machinery slowly rusts into the soil. It is an evocative place, a quiet arena cut off from its surroundings, where nature is slowly taking back territory previously lost to human activity.

Next I went to Stevns Klint, a rocky outcrop in the northern end of Salene Bugt just south of Helligdomsklipperne. Here the natural granite rock face is completely different in character. As I had in Bolsterbjerg, I started by dividing the paper into 3 x 5 squares. Then I made a very simple pencil sketch of the whole area I would focus on, making notes and sketches. Returning the next day just after midday, I started in the middle of the painting and worked by way, square by square as time went, finishing in the bottom right square, at about 10 pm. The next morning at 5 am I returned and continued, starting from the top left square, until I reached there where I had begun the day before.

The third venue was Stammershalle, another rocky outcrop further north. Here the prominotory is riddled with iron and bronze age menhir and dolmen and I’ve always felt as though there is a special energy or atmosphere in the area. This time I worked horizontally from left to right. Again, it was an incredible experience to spend so much time outside in one place just looking and looking, and looking…

The fourth place I chose was ‘Peder Olsens Havn’ just south of Hasle on the other eastern side of the island. Here sheltering under a low sandstone cliff I was again completely cut off from everything and anyone and had only the gulls for company. At the end of the first day it started to rain and I struggled to keep the huge painting dry under my shelter. The next morning was the most incredible magical sunrise. Whilst I worked horizontally again, I subdivided the painting according to the Golden Mean. This meant that I ‘changed’ more quickly during those parts of the day that the light changed more quickly (the sunrise and the sunset).

The final three paintings were sky studies, where I subdivided the sky into stripes or squares, and followed it through the day. In the painting below, I started in the top left and work down, then started up on the next column, and so on…

I used pretty much all of August and a bit of September on the paintings. We had a week to install the exhibition, and it went very smoothly, just as it had done the previous times. We the artists worked well together and were ably supported by the passionate and knowledgable volunteers of Gudhjem Museum. Here a photo taken during installation.

I was surprised and a tiny bit disappointed when I saw how my huge paintings shrunk once within the gallery, but overall I was very pleased with the exhibition and my large watercolours. Unfortunately due to Covid there was no PV, but now I just thank the lucky stars that we were able to open at all. Such a fantastic place to exhibit, and in the company of such talented artists. I think our stuff worked really well together – Earthbound IV? Who knows, watch this space…