Wallis Distortion, 2022, oil on canvas, 76cm x 76cm
This is one of Robert Dunt's "Distortion Form" paintings.
* Ships in a sturdy cardboard box
* Shipping included
* 7-day money back guarantee
* Click in the top right corner for currency conversion
This painting was inspired by an Alfred Wallis painting that Robert saw on a recent trip to St Ives. Alfred Wallis made simple port and shipping scenes painted in a naive style. He had no formal training but was a great influence on artists like Ben Nicholson. He had a skilful and controlled use of colours. The painting Robert saw just used greens and greys, siennas and Paynes Grey to create a harmonious and dazzling work. In fact very similar to the way Braque would use colours sometimes. Inspired by this Robert wanted to produce a painting using a similar reduced palette.
The Distortion Form paintings are inspired by music, and in particular the band the Jesus and Mary Chain. Robert was influenced by paintings that explored colour such as the works by Monet, Matisse and Jackson Pollock. But he did not just want to recreate these paintings and so began looking at a way of using colour in a more contemporary context.
The Jesus and Mary Chain wrote pretty "Beach Boys" like pop songs but then covered them with noise and distortion and feedback. In a similar fashion Robert painted ‘pretty’ colourful paintings and then covered them with black and white "Distortion Forms", a visual metaphor for the noise and distortion used by the Jesus and Mary Chain.
Though inspired by music these paintings are firmly rooted in the visual, and work on making original colour combinations. The paintings also reference the act of seeing, the freneticism of some sections of the paintings referencing visual experiences such as looking at, and through, the branches of tress as they shake in the wind. Like all Robert's paintings the aim is to give the viewer greater visual pleasure of the the world and the colours they see in it.
