Trois Dômes

On a warm summer’s day in the Perigord Vert in south west France, the harvest has begun. The stubble of a threshed field glows rich red as wild plants with maroon stems mix their colour with the golden prickly cut stalks that stubbornly point towards a hazy blue sky.

Just over the horizon the landscape is punctured by the beneficiary of this gathering, an immense collection of silos, their domes gleaming in the summer sun. It’s form looks incongruous in the surrounding landscape, as if just arrived, just landed, from some far off planet. As if it could take off again at any moment.

For now the peace has not been disturbed and we are far enough away to not be troubled by any noise it may need to make. For now we can only hear the cry of the larks, too high up in the sky to be visible, or so low that they are hiding in the spiky grasses.

Artist’s notes:
I am constantly attracted by the architecture of silos. It has become a bit of a passion of mine to seek out interesting shapes and forms and locations. I am constantly seduced by their apparent inability to belong to the landscapes in which they are situated, but at the same time seem to represent the culmination of all the hard work and toil of farming the land around them. In every season the silos seem to command their landscape and have a chameleon like presence that changes according to the skies that surround them.

In this painting I loved the compliments of rich reds and greens in the foreground, juxtaposed with the cool blue of the sky. The silvery grey surface of the silos seem to reflect both and exude a purplish metallic hue.

I painted this in oil using glazes to build up the rich colour of the field and a fan brush to enhance the texture. Several layers of blues were added to the sky to create a feeling of infinity and depth.