Artist's Portfolio
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Lar Cann
For a number of years Lar Cann has been engaged with the visual impact on the landscape of South West England, brought about by the industrial extraction of tin, copper and lead. This intervention has revealed a normally hidden world of minerals. Unrivalled in variety, it is a continuing source of his investigation and motivation.
A number of these minerals, unearthed and scavenged from the spoil heaps, provide references made almost exclusively for their colour content, often in conjunction with the matrix of rock in which they are found. The colours may well get modified in saturation and tone during the picture making process, but without direct observation from the specimens in his collection the work would not have this as a starting point. The geometry and planar composition of the work is usually based in another aspect of Cornwall’s geology, that of granite quarrying. He will frequently mix the two sources, irrespective of any scientific accuracy, often juxtaposing two or more colours from unrelated minerals, but always for the sake of the painting’s construct. Avoiding any reference to scale, it is a response to the landscape rather than a recording of it. The gestalt is the essence of the process. |
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