PETER HOLLOWAY RCA

The silence and calm of an empty canvas has a beauty and mystery which excites my imagination.

It can take weeks before making the leap into the ‘dark’ of a new work. Darkness is the other side of the coin, and has its own attraction, posing demands and questions about life and mankind’s relevance in this
vast cosmos. We are the product of stardust, and I share Walt Whitman’s “sense of oneness with the universe”. My recent work has to do with the horizon between light and dark, opacity and transparency, exploring the gravitational flow of paint, the flooding of photons from outer space, and the limits of human perception. In all the works there has to be tension between the colours to give them energy and vitality.

The works on paper are an exploration of “form is emptiness, emptiness is form”, bearing in mind the Buddhist philosophy There are artists I converse with through my paintings such as Agnes Martin, who was a serious
student of Taoist and Buddhist teachings, and regarded art as a ‘path to the sublime’, but also Brice Marden, Ellsworth Kelly and Ad Reinhardt, among others.

Mae harddwch a dirgelwch i lonyddwch a distawrwydd cynfas wag sy’n cyffroi fy nychymyg.

Gall gymryd wythnosau cyn cymryd y naid honno i ‘dywyllwch’ gwaith newydd. Tywyllwch yw ochr arall y geiniog, ac mae’n fy nenu, gan gynnig heriau a chodi cwestiynau am fywyd a pherthnasedd y ddynolryw yn
ehangder y cosmos hwn. Rydym yn tarddu o lwch sêr, ac rwyf yn rhannu “synnwyr” Walt Whitman “o fod yn un gyda’r bydysawd”. Mae fy ngwaith diweddar yn ymwneud â’r bydysawd rhwng goleuni a thywyllwch, afloywder a
thryloywder, gan archwilio llif disgyrchol paent, ffotonau’n gorlifo o’r gofod, a therfynau canfyddiad dynol. Mae’n rhaid cael tensiwn rhwng y lliwiau ym mhob darn o waith er mwyn rhoi egni a bywiogrwydd iddynt.

Ar bapur, mae’r gwaith yn archwiliad o’r syniad; “mae ffurf yn wacter, a gwacter yn ffurf”, gan gofio athroniaeth y Bwdhydd. Mae artistiaid rwyf fi’n sgwrsio â nhw drwy fy mhaentiadau fel Agnes Martin, a oedd yn fyfyriwr o ddifrif i ddysgeidiaeth y Taoydd a’r Bwdhydd, ac a oedd yn ystyried celf fel ‘llwybr i gyrraedd y gwych’, ond hefyd Brice Marden, Ellsworth Kelly ac Ad Reinhardt, ymysg eraill.