'Painting and drawing directly from the subject is exciting and demanding. I try to look very carefully and patiently to build my remembered glimpses into a whole. My pictures are about the observed visual interactions and relationships that relate to how it looks and my ideas. They are painted usually in front of the motif, where anything can happen.
Most of the pictures in this exhibition are made directly from motifs in Cornwall and recently, Italy. My process is investigative and what is discovered remains a mystery until the painting or drawing stops; there are no preconceived results or outcomes. It takes me time to completely see what has happened.
There are artists I continuously look at: Cézanne, Chardin, Piero della Francesca, Vermeer, Matisse, Van Gogh, Duccio, Fra Angelico, Giacometti, and others. I have always drawn from other paintings, either in the gallery or from images. Sometimes this fascination is taken further by the physical reconstruction of the painting as a set-up, which is then painted as a new subject.
Painting from my own drawings, away from the motif also fascinates me. I enjoy the reinvention of language to convey the initial motivation of the subject, which might be very fleeting, but the painting process is long and complex.
Each subject is unique, within its own space, and in relation to my viewpoint. Responding to the motif creates the urgency and the focus. I try to understand and locate the forms, colour, and spaces in relation to the picture plane, which is often determined in the set-up.
Every picture is different and one has to respond to its demands; despite ideas one might have. Sometimes the idea is modified, and the physical forms and colours are moved around in the space and the picture.
I am driven by drawing how beautiful something appears, trying to look as hard as I can, balancing observation, invention, and imagination. My paintings take time, so they must deal with change, the thing changes, and my perception changes.'
Mark Dunford, Cornwall, 2026