Leo Stevenson

It is the job of an artist to say something about themselves in a way that communicates something within us all. Of all the different kinds of paintings I do it is landscapes that has the most resonant meaning for me. Why? Ultimately all landscape paintings are about us; how we live or want to live. A sense of place comes from within us because what we see is always connected to who we are and what we are feeling. Time drives landscapes to change in the same way that time changes us. It is only in moments of stillness that we can appreciate this inexorable change, but in a state of flux time blurs our memories. Intentions and contexts are forgotten and then reinvented as our scattered aims form random patterns in the landscapes both within and around us. The future becomes the past. Glimpses of both drift into our dreams. We are transient witnesses left wondering ‘when did I last see that?’ or ‘when did I first notice this?’ Meanwhile, the illusion of permanence shimmers seductively. The only certainty is that the sounds of our laughter and our weeping will float away and vanish like clouds while we hope, we dare, we regret, we start again…and so it goes on…