On social media, it says about me that I enjoy lying down on the tops of mountains usually because I have either walked or run up them first!  This deep passion of mine, leads to participation in journeys across both land and water and I see it as part of the ‘human condition’.  The perspective of the West Dorset landscape is greatly altered by walking up local hilltops, many previously occupied by ancient ancestors.

The ‘Interrogating Landscapes Project’ organised through Dorset Visual Arts is now in its third year and my artwork has changed and evolved throughout this time.  This way of working, collaboratively with other Artists in the same location, has made me investigate many different approaches and avenues of exploration, hopefully creating a ‘sense of place’.  My Artwork expresses the concept of a different period in both time and History too, watercolours and acrylics painted in diffused light conditions at night and exploring the spiritual nature of this area of outstanding natural beauty.

I recently embarked on a new project called ‘The Great Stare’, based around Milton Abbey and is a restoration and reconstruction of Capability Brown’s Beautiful Landscape and interested in the age and archeology of this unique Dorset landscape and the impact on the natural environment in the last five hundred years of habitation. 

I look at the world through my images, artwork and photography, carefully creating a record or map out my early thoughts in sketchbooks and use photography as a way of sketching too.  Larger scale work is executed in watercolours, and acrylics and reflects my journey and emotions.  Interrogating this landscape near my new home on Portland, is already leading to much larger work. 

Info

Portland
Dorset, UK

stephen.yates@btinternet.com

07720892944