Jeff Rigby
recent paintings 2020-2021
8 May – 2 June 2021
There is no particular theme for this body of work and while I have sometimes worked thematically, I am always conscious of using landscape and the built environment in counterpoint: The looser, gentler structures of one, set in contrast to the more rigid, formal structures of the other, create a subtext of structure and light which is more important than any conscious theme and so regardless of subject or title, these underlying imperatives, always seem to creep in unbidden.
However, the period in which these works were produced is one which none of us will easily forget. First there was the dreadful, ongoing tension of the “Black Summer,” especially for those who live in fire prone areas. Then the Pandemic, resulting in isolation and unemployment but surprisingly, providing new insights and understanding. Throughout all this, artists have been responding in their own ways, perhaps directly or for some, more obliquely.
In my case, despite the lack of any direct reference to those events, it is impossible for me to look at any of these pictures without remembering the particular circumstances of the period in which they were produced, whether was fire, pandemic or flood.
