The Art of Robert Pittam: Sea of Serenity
Robert Pittam's art can be seen on these Websites, with the understanding
that no Website images can do justice to the paintings.
http://www.watersidestives.com/painting-artist/robert-pittam/
From the site:
'
[his paintings show a] distinctive style in which the very diverse
influences of his favourite painters Vermeer and Edward Hopper can be
clearly seen. His still lifes have a dark intensity and richness in the
Dutch tradition and yet his landscapes and figures draw upon the surreal and
polished style of Hopper.'
http://www.hicksgallery.co.uk/artist/robert-pittam/
From the site:
'Greatly influenced by the work of Vermeer and Edward Hopper, I too aim for
a certain quality of stillness in my pictures. The still-lifes often include
fishes and I believe that they are amongst the most interesting subjects in
nature to study in paint. Possessing colour, pattern, reflectivity,
perfectly evolved streamlined shapes and a three dimensional form to
‘sculpt’ in light and shade – they might also be read as metaphors for the
sea itself.'
http://www.innocentfineart.co.uk/art/robert-pittam/
http://www.robertpittam.co.uk/
The moon's Sea of Serenity, like the other large, dark, basaltic plains
which are the Seas of the Moon, is no ordinary sea and Robert Pittam's
paintings of the life of the seas and objects from the sea or by the sea are
no ordinary paintings, and certainly not derivative paintings. Although
Vermeer and Hopper are influences, his individuality is obvious.
His still life paintings are still but seem permeated by lines of force. The
paintings which show fish in pairs remind me of sources of electrical energy
in pairs where the electric force between them is palpable - a
highly-charged stillness. He has made very fruitful use of the series of
paintings. A mathematical series often goes on to infinity and the series of
paintings which pursue a theme, such as the theme of fish grouped with
another fish or with other objects to do with the sea, suggest, if not
infinity, something vast. The series to be found in his paintings indicates
the inexhaustible interest of the subject.
The development of astronomy and geology and the study of evolutionary
history enlarged our understanding and gave us a conception of vastly
enlarged space and time. Robert Pittam's still life paintings are far from
being exquisite miniatures - although their technique is superb. So, the
fish he paints on a plate are far from limited beings, whose purposes are
mainly culinary. To me, they suggest the living things which began their
history about 530 million years ago, during the Cambrian explosion, the
living things which began the vertebrate odyssey. But this reminds me of
some non-scientific associations, such as the wine-dark sea of Homer, or, by
a paradox, of dark and luminous seas.
I think that Robert Pittam points the way out of the impasse, or the
dilemma, of realism and abstraction in art, or many forms of realism and
abstraction. Both of these have disadvantages. How to choose between
them? Robert Pittam has presented in many of his paintings to present
elements which exhibit clear cut spatial relationships, for example, two
fish at a short distance from each other. This is an art of clear-cut
mensuration, unlike the messier, more informal world of a reasiltic painting
in which there may be an abundance of elements without such clear
mensuration. The placing of the elements in the visual plane is clearer and
simpler than in most still life paintings, such as those of Cezanne. There
seems to me to be a linkage with formal garden design, where the elements of
the garden, such as hedges and beds, have a clarity of spatial organization
which is very different frrom the more chaotic world of a naturalistic
garden.
But the elements of a Robert Pittam still life, like the elements of formal
planting, aren't abstract shapes, with clear-cut, regular forms, but objects
with sensuous immediacy. They are pockets of naturalism carefully placed in
an otherwise abstract composition. The paintings are composites, natural and
artful, carefully designed, carefully measured, but without loss of the
advantages of realism.