20 Gascony is steeped in eclectic cultures, perhaps encouraged by its abundance of rich natural


products. So it shouldn’t be a surprise that the area is also home to many diverse and talented artists, over the next 4 pages we take a look at some of the best.


(Ben Brotherton, who is featured here also painted the picture featured on the front cover.) Painting and Art Courses In the Gers B


en Brotherton graduated from Canterbury Christ Church University


College with a 1st class BA in Painting in 2002 and an MA in painting in 2004. ‘The painting department of Christ Church was traditional, emphasizing the importance of drawing and observation. Every term on the BA course we spent two days a week, working on the same painting in the life room. It was here that we learnt intensity and an unbending desire to get to… well I am unsure if any student really knew to where they were going, perhaps the aim was to be unbending, critical, to be habituated to spending a long time working on something, not closing it down too soon.’ After 5 years as artist in residence and teaching art at The King’s School, Canterbury, Ben moved with his family to Sadeillan in the Gers where he now lives.


“The Gascon Farmhouse” Oil on linen Ben Brotherton (2011)


Working directly from his subject, Ben’s carefully considered paintings radiate a tranquility and calmness. Ben explains 'Painting from nature may be my attempt to understand the world; it allows me the opportunity to engage with its constituents. From the infinite chaos of experience a painting might be distilled… I have been asked before what I mean by “the infinite chaos of experience” so I’ll try to explain here. An observed object is never static; it always changes; perhaps something moves – the object, the observer or the light but more importantly as one continues to observe and draw an object the more one understands the complexity of its internal relationships. One sees for the first time, for example, how the roof of a particular building protrudes in a certain way beyond the wall, making a shape that is unique to the building viewed from this point. Or perhaps it’s how the muscle in the forearm of the life model is pushed out and away from the ulna creating a bulbous form between elbow and wrist. This form is due to the compression between arm of model and arm of chair where the model is posed. Initially that roof - wall relationship or that pushed out muscle was not seen. In some sense one could argue that they did not therefore exist. If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it does it make a noise? I am not really trying to claim that an unobserved tree etc. does


not physically exist. It is simply interesting that the observation of a static object is not an immediate and finite event. I like the idea that the more one looks and draws (the drawing is important here because it forces one to look again and again) the more the subject revels itself; I like this idea of a potentially infinite series of visual revelations occurring as if the subject is physically changing before one’s eyes. There are artists who have claimed that a painting is never finished, they could theoretically continue to paint it for a life time. Euan Uglow, a painter who influenced many of my tutors, could spend a near decade on one painting of a life model. Paradoxically, it may seem, this never ending observation does not necessarily lead to an ever increasing level of intricacy. The infinite series of visual revelations may be the perpetual fine tuning of the height to width relationship of a wall rather than the noting of another hair on the models head, another grain of sand … ’


Inspired by, amongst others, Cézanne, Corot, Matisse and Bomberg, Ben’s paintings are about the painted surface, space and light. 'I believe Bomberg’s notion of “the spirit in the mass” articulates the tension between the energy invested into the painting by the artist, and the energy resonating from the motif…What do I mean? What did Bomberg mean? Perhaps the energy invested into a painting is the time one bothers to


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