BEYOND THE GOLDEN REEDS
Keith Rogers lives on the Dorset coast and wakes up every morning to breathtaking views and the wondrous habitat surrounding Stanpit Marsh. It’s about the harbour, the marsh, creeks and perfect moons. It’s about the hedgerows and tabletop flowers, and the reeds that turn into shimmering wands of gold in the morning sun.
All this magic is reflected in his series of large scale, semi-abstract and expressive paintings, full of complex colours and patterns.
Just as nature bursts into life, so do his paintings. They are packed with energy and movement. Emotive lines and scratch marks symbolise strength, vitality and growth, and evoke positive feelings charged with passion.
Through extensive reworking, a simple painting of an object or landscape becomes much more, as colours and marks are added or scraped away. Fragments of hidden layers are revealed, with phenomenal discoveries that keep on giving. When one tiny mark is added, it gives back a thousand.
These mini events are strung together to create a sequence of moments in time, and give the paintings their history. Layers of paint echo the time they take to make and lines are as long as they take to draw.
The wooden line installation is created from a complex drawing of washed up reeds at Mother Siller’s Channel on the marsh.
As the golden reeds draw the night-time waves, they trace a line between water and land.
In the midst of the transition, they pause and make their mark.