Seasons, Clearly

Just look at it exactly as it is. What might you appreciate about this encounter if you can stop wanting the rain to be over? Shape, colour, form, texture that is quite expressive, life-filled, moving constantly. Suddenly, rain is not so miserable.

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It's all about seasons. We have Hockney to thank for this reminder at the moment.

Sitting in a room at the RA with his large, tessellated film works of nature metamorphosing through the seasons, I gasped with a couple of hundred others as the same scenes were presented through jaw-dropping, theatrical changes: first, the autumn reds, fade to black; second, minimalist snow blanket, fade to black; third, spring green leaping off the screens, fade to black; and so on.

Moving through the galleries around repeat woodland scenes rendered in conflicting light through the seasons and times of day, I knew what he was saying. This time it leaps off and jumps on you, and that time it is totally flattened out and lifeless. Yes, I can feel both of those things in the same place.

Startling, large-scale canvas work pieced together on the biggest wall available and viewed from a distance moved me to tears - striking encouragement to keep going.

I have come to be enthralled by seasons and what they teach of patience through repeated cycles over years and years, and more years. Seasons take their time, and sometimes slow time. This is about the agony, serenity and exuberance of seasons passing, and how you can be moved and held in place all at once.

See it exactly the way it appears, and be held in place while it does the moving.

Seasons of yours. Ours.

Still moving. Still, but moving.

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'hard times ain't gonna rule my mind'


{Today's Soundtrack: Gillian Welch - Hard Times}