Andrew Cowdell, Snow at Hermitage, 2018

Andrew Cowdell, Snow at Hermitage, 2018, oil on board, 10 x 8 inches

My low-key paintings are defined by their subdued tones and colour mixtures that tend towards neutral browns, greens and greys. They seem a natural progression from my earlier monochrome works and allow me to explore the possibilities of a limited palette. It is precisely these sober tones which propel these landscapes into the gloomy, contradictory universe of romanticism. This of course makes sense as they bear witness to my admiration for Corot, Courbet and Friedrich. It is possibly my preoccupation with 19th Century painting that is somehow channelling timelessness into these paintings. They are imbued with a quality which seems to owe very little to our present epoch and, on reflection, these landscapes are totally devoid of people. It may well suggest that our information age is enticing people away from nature. However, I think nature will cope.

Gustave Doré, Sister of Charity Saving a Child, Episode in the Siege of Paris, 1871

Gustave Doré, Sœur de la Charité sauvant un enfant, 1871, 38 x 51 inches

Gustave Doré's engravings won him worldwide recognition as one of the foremost illustrators of his time and yesterday at Tate Britain we were given a rare opportunity to stand nose to canvas with this fine example of his oil painting. The scene shows the awful human cost of the siege of Paris, when the French capital was encircled by Prussian troops after Napoleon III's surrender on 2 September 1870. Whilst other artists fled, Doré joined the National Guard to defend the capital. Here, painting that winter, he seems to be recording a scene that he had actually witnessed. He shows a nun carrying a child to safety along a snowy blood-stained street, by a wall which might belong to the religious house where she hopes to take the child. A part of the city burns behind her, and someone sprawls wounded on the pavement further back. Ahead of her, a jagged piece of shrapnel lies on the snow, and at the side is a large bloodstain. The painting showcases Doré's unique vision as both fine artist and illustrator.

Andrew Cowdell, Winter, 2018

Andrew Cowdell, Winter, 2018, oil on board, 10 x 8 inches

My study of the French School of Painting has taught me a very valuable lesson - that a painter's worth is less dependent on the technique than on the vision. With this in mind, I am distancing myself from the static hyperrealist approach of my youth by unpicking years of illustrative habits. As I proceed devotedly onwards I realise increasingly how important it is to subject technique to one's personal vision.

Andrew Cowdell, Oiseau de Dieu (Wren), 2018

Andrew Cowdell, Oiseau de Dieu (Wren), 2018, oil on board, 7 x 5 inches

In Normandy, the wren could be called Oiseau de Dieu (Bird of God). People believed that this bird was present at the birth of Christ, and brought moss and feathers to form a coverlet for the Holy Child. In other parts of the world, the wren was also regarded as a symbol of wisdom and divinity. The spotting of a wren could be taken as a sign that the beholder would be blessed with inner knowledge during the coming year. Finding a creature so small and camouflaged in its habitat was a metaphor for finding the elusive divinity within all life.
We are lucky enough to have a wren who is a regular visitor to our garden. When I spy this tiny creature bobbing between flower pots in pursuit of insects, I too pause to reflect on the wren's secretive life which so often goes unnoticed.

Andrew Cowdell, Abandoned paintings

Half-finished canvases by Andrew Cowdell

These abandoned canvases are reminders of moments when, for whatever reasons, my vision was racing ahead of execution. During these times fears arise - is it a good composition? will it be worth the time or the effort? who will appreciate it? But what separates artists from ex-artists is that those who challenge their fears, continue; those who don't, quit. I have since acknowledged that vision is always ahead of execution, mastery of materials is my only contact with reality, and uncertainty is a virtue.

Andrew Cowdell, Corvid, 2018

Andrew Cowdell, Corvid, 2018, oil on board, 10 x 8 inches

The raven is, in my view, the most imposing species of the family Corvidae. It is easy to see how people, struck by the intensity and completeness of the raven's plumage, might conclude that this bird must also be black on the inside - be black at heart. But look closer at the gloss and brilliancy of this corvid and you will notice the sharp sculpted feathers which, in certain light, glow iridescent with purple. The raven is not so black, in this respect, as he is painted. He may transform into an ideal of beauty, to which it would be a delicate compliment to compare the dark eyes or hair of a loved one.

Andrew Cowdell, The way home, 2017

Andrew Cowdell, The way home, carbon and watercolour

The path tears through hedgerows across Bothampstead and cuts across fields toward the outskirts of Hermitage village. The familiar tree has become a symbolic signpost on a walk I've enjoyed countless times. It tells of home, journey's end, a couple of easygoing miles beyond the brow.

Andrew Cowdell, Dawn, 2017

Andrew Cowdell, Dawn, 2017, carbon and watercolour, 7 x 9"

These early morning sessions enable me to capture that sense of stillness when trees and fields are wet with the morning dew and the light of the breaking day has not reached its full intensity. The atmosphere created is both romantic and realistic.

Andrew Cowdell, Two crows at dawn, 2016

Andrew Cowdell. Two crows at dawn. 2016. Oil on linen.

My fascination with darkness requires an idea of light. In Two crows at dawn, the beauty of morning’s first light is matched by the eeriness generated by the arresting, black, thorn-like tangle of trees within the hedgerow. This traumatised landscape is a realm that snags, bites and troubles, and yet still invokes the pastoral dream of natural tranquillity. Beauty is envisaged here as William Blake’s “marriage of the contraries”, dependent upon both positive and negative aspects of existence.

The darkness of the setting serves as a representation of the Other, or the Unknown, which subtly imbues the scene with a sense of the supernatural. In subverting the aesthetic certainties of the usual green and pleasant Berkshire countryside, I am simultaneously identifying with both the picturesque and sinister presences within it. Presences which may include fiscal forces churning and poisoning the landscape; evidenced in the painting by tyre marks along the field margin. Alternatively, ‘absences’ may refer to the slow grinding away of our flora and fauna as species are lost; the two sentinel ‘carrion’ crows sent forth by vengeful nature. This landscape may even have its phantoms, lying or waiting where they fell or were taken at some unspecified time in history. And yet, all this darkness depends on the corresponding light of dawn as the beauty of the landscape reawakens.

But ultimately, I shall leave it to your own interpretation.

Andrew Cowdell, Clamour over Hermitage, 2016

Andrew Cowdell, Clamour over Hermitage, 2016, oil on linen

In this monochrome oil painting, a clamour of rooks enhances the beauty of the Berkshire landscape made desolate by the damp, overcast weather. 

In the following extract the French poet Arthur Rimbaud describes his affection for these raucous birds:

Lord, when the meadowland is cold, 

and when in the downcast hamlets the long Angeluses are silent.. 

down on Nature barren of flowers let 

them sweep from the wide skies, the dear delightful rooks. 

from The Rooks (Les Corbeaux)

by Arthur Rimbaud, 1854-1891

Andrew Cowdell, The Terrible Beauty of a Winter's Day, 2016

Andrew Cowdell, The Terrible Beauty of a Winter's Day, oil on linen

With only the corvids for company and little in the way of sunshine, the terrible beauty in my surroundings inspired the subject and title to this monochrome oil painting. The corvids I have painted are specifically rooks, which are still often spoken of under the general term ‘crow’. Many times have I observed these eccentric and ragged birds as they twist and tumble through the skies above their communal roosts in the woods. However, once out across the fields these rooks adopt a steady undeviating flight as they commute to their feeding grounds. It may be to rooks that the old saying ‘as the crow flies’ refers.

In the following extract James Thomson relates his meeting with rooks during a bygone winter:

See, Winter comes to rule the varied year,

Sullen and sad, with all his rising train—

Vapours, and clouds, and storms. Be these my theme,

These, that exalt the soul to solemn thought

And heavenly musing. Welcome, kindred glooms!

…But chief the plumy race,

The tenants of the sky, its changes speak.

Retiring from the downs, where all day long

They pick’d their scanty fare, a black’ning train

Of clamorous rooks thick-urge their weary flight,

And seek the closing shelter of the grove.

from The Seasons: Winter

by James Thomson, 1700-1748

Rita Hayworth: The Lady

Andrew Cowdell, The Lady, 2015, oil and silver leaf on linen

The Lady is a silver leaf oil portrait of Elsa (Rita Hayworth) in The Lady from Shanghai (1948). Director Orson Welles stars alongside his estranged wife Hayworth before finalising their divorce. In taking the role of scheming femme fatale Elsa, Hayworth’s image was to undergo a drastic change. She allegedly wanted to break from the character she had become so identified with in her previous hit movie Gilda (1946), so she had her famous long hair cut and bleached blonde. Welles was held responsible for the controversial look, as Hayworth later recalled Columbia Pictures president Harry Cohn saying “He’s ruined you - he cut your hair off!”

Fashion and Painting: a symbiosis

Andrew Cowdell, Faux noir, oil on canvas

Faux noir is one of my first large-scale monochrome oil paintings. It is a figurative composition exploring the language of clothing, a dialogue which can subtly emphasise qualities of personality and sentiment. The symbiosis of fashion and painting is a theme I enjoy seeking out in galleries, especially those containing portraits of the Second Empire and Impressionism. As art inspired fashion, so fashion served as a muse for art.

Veronica Lake: cabaret noir

Andrew Cowdell, Cabaret noir, 2015, oil on canvas

Veronica Lake exudes a guileless charm as a nightclub singer in This Gun for Hire (1942). 

This classic hard-boiled thriller was adapted from Grahame Greene’s novel A Gun for Sale and made Alan Ladd an instant star. Ladd’s gun-for-hire Raven is a brutal assassin with a benevolent affection for cats; the scene where he silences a stray moggie is particularly portent. Lake’s character becomes a symbol of redemption to Ladd’s murderous anti-hero who holds her captive. United by fate, the singer and the killer form an uneasy alliance to expose a chemical company suspected of treason against their country. 

This Gun for Hire was the first film of several to pair Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake together.

Carole Lombard: platinum blonde

Andrew Cowdell, Carole Lombard, 2012

Carole Lombard was one of the most gifted women stars during the thirties.

Described as “Platinum blonde, with a heart-shaped face, delicate, impish features and a figure made to be swathed in silver lamé”, Lombard’s movie career was cut short in 1942 when she died in a plane crash aged 33.

After her death, the United States Government commissioned a Liberty Ship named SS Carole Lombard, which rescued hundreds of survivors from sunken ships in the Pacific and returned them to safety.

Andrew Cowdell, The Return, 2014

Andrew Cowdell, The Return, oil on canvas

This monochrome oil painting takes its inspiration from the movie Laura (1944). The concept explores the theme of the ‘magical portrait’ which characterises many noir thrillers and gothic melodramas of the 1940s. The gothic exists in the core of the portrait not only in its classical style, but also in its true representational meaning; it is a ‘symbolic body’ replacing a ‘mortal body’. In choosing this concept I am exploring the same underlying theme of presence and absence as dominates the film’s narrative.

Andrew Cowdell, The allure of night, 2014

Andrew Cowdell, The allure of night, oil on canvas

Hello everybody, and welcome to Art in Noir.

The black-and-white cinematography of the classic era is a mood which still colours my childhood memories of the 1970s. It was both comforting and exciting to bask in the monochromatic glow from our big old television set in the living room. It's of no surprise to me now that those same black-and-white dreamlike qualities are permeating my artworks.

Taking my inspiration from the 1946 film noir The Killers, this monochrome oil painting fuses various elements of the dark narrative to represent a conceptualized image. Ava Gardner as Kitty Collins is the ultimate femme fatale; sultry and sardonic, she at once embodies everything that is beautiful and terrible. Kitty's lover, Ole, takes the rap for her stolen jewellery and is sentenced for a three-year prison term. Ole's cellmate Charleston passes the time by gazing at and studying the stars. When Charleston describes a bright star in the night sky, Ole is thinking of Kitty:

"You see that bright star in the center...brightest star in all the heavens. Only it's so far away, it don't seem like it."

But Kitty hasn't written or visited Ole in prison during his entire incarceration. Kitty dominates the fate in store for those who embark upon nocturnal adventures. Her mysterious attraction corresponds to the unfathomability of the night itself.

Thank you for reading.