"Enchantment at Monserrate" MONSERRATE PALACE AND GARDENS Artist in residence 2012 -2013
I was invited to be the inaugural Artist in Residence at the World Heritage Palace and Gardens of Monserrate in Sintra, Portugal. I spent eighteen months painting in the gardens and the surrounding countryside making a series of paintings which were exhibited in the palace.
The artist at work
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The PalaceThe Opening Night    |
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The Paintings
many of the paintings from the earlier Lisbon show were also exhibited
NOTES
ON THE PAINTINGS AND THE EXHIBITION
What
is the nature of enchantment?
A layering of realities, a resonance which has
a sense of “the other”, a scintillation of significance, human time suspended
or slowed, plant time unhindered, weaving into the abandoned spaces.
With
its repeating history of both splendour and decadence the palace and gardens of
Monserrate emanate this quality of enchantment.
Part
of the nature of enchantment is the way we happen upon it, our discovery is
filled with a sense of chance as though we are being led in, that things are
being revealed to us, and to discover and wander in the gardens in Monserrate
is to sense the harmony of plant form and ornament and to be led in to areas of
extraordinary stillness and beauty, where plants and architectural elements
weave together and where deep perspectives are revealed.
As a painter I was enchanted by the
design of the gardens, the variety and combination of trees and plants, the
colours and the shapes that they formed in space, and the way all of this
changed mood with the light and the weather.
