Saul Robertson RSW

My paintings often depict idylls of sorts – more urban or village than countryside, but peaceful, quiet places nevertheless.  That which can be fleeting and hard to find in the course of everyday life becomes, in some senses, permanent and enduring when painted.  This is related to my love of the pastoral tradition in European painting, in particular Giovanni Bellini and Jean-Antoine Watteau, who can be seen to bookend this tradition.

Beyond painting, another influence on these paintings was all the Beatnik/road trip fiction I read when I was young: the restless passing through small towns and villages and the sense that the real journey took place within.

Books and reading within these works have the same symbolic intent.

The places depicted are imaginary, but based (sometimes unconsciously at the time of painting) on memories of time spent in a variety of places near and far, both recently and long ago – a long list including Findhorn, Gullane, rural villages in France, Montenegro….fragments which are adapted and combined into an imaginary painted world.