For Duncan Wood NEAC, painting is ultimately a visible homage to what the late art critic & writer John Berger called ‘The Existent’ . . .
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Artist Statement
“My work is primarily concerned with attempting to emulate particular aspects of Nature’s forms of landscape, still life and the figure. I work using first-hand experience of the subject, but also from an accumulation of visual memory. Painting is for me, ultimately a visible homage to what the late art critic & writer John Berger called ‘The Existent’, and if it convinces in some way, may act as proof that someone has loved how a part of the world is - I feel this kind of activity is increasingly important for us in our time, as ‘Everything’ we make out of ‘Nature’ not just art, can perhaps visually tell us where we have gone wrong, but also, where we have been part of ‘The Whole’, and in harmony with its laws."
From ‘ The Tables Turned ’ (The Lyrical Ballads)
‘ One impulse from a vernal wood
May teach you more of man,
Of moral evil and of good,
Than all the sages can.
Sweet is the law that nature brings;
Our meddling intellect
Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things;
- We murder to dissect.’
William Wordsworth (1798)
"I do not attempt to copy appearances exactly, because the world is in a constant state of flux and therefore impossible to pin down. Neither do I disregard the place for the conceptual, but would wish it to be subservient to and derive from the senses. Then there is also the awareness of Historical and Contemporary art.”