David Tress

David Tress

David Tress is a British artist that was born in 1955 Wembley, northwest London, he then studied at Harrow College of Art before graduating in Fine Arts from Trent Polytechnic, Nottingham. In 1976 he then moved to Pembrokeshire where he has lived ever since.

While he was at Trent, he became involved with experiments in conceptual and performance art but later, came to question the assumptions of modernism. Deciding that he had reached the limit of what he could achieve with realism alone, he instead developed an aggressively expressionist style that involves physically scraping or cutting the painted surface and then repairing it, building up layer upon layer as if to mimic the seasonal sequence of decay and regrowth.

As many artist would he first starts with a drawing or sketch of his subject this is normally when he is visiting the landscapes he wishes to paint.  While walking in the countryside David Tress like to keep an open mind of what he wants to draw, keeping an open mind helps him clearly see the landscape and not get detracted by searching for his ideas of what he wants to draw. Often he revisits the same landscapes he has already painted and redraws them. When talking about his sketches he talks about how even when he returns to the same place that he has draw before there are still differences that occur, be it from the time of year ,weather, light or just noticing something that he missed the last time that makes each drawing different from the last.

After he as completed his sketched he then returns to his studio as sometime day or weeks later then looks at his drawing to start the painting. This painting is not just a likeness of the landscape but rather to capture what it David Tress had done felt and seen on that day, he trys to capture the emotional memory's of the landscape as well as the view that he has seen.His paintings develop slowly with some paintings having gaps of day,week or sometime mouths of no progress.

In each of his paintings David Tress likes to take risks with his work trying out different ways of layering paint onto the cavers and going with his instinct this way he feels that hes decisions are made more with the subconscious and that can make the painting more interesting and interactive instead of a flat technically accurate one.

With his use of layering his canvas and paint on gradually it give his work a rich texture that works well, this adds to the landscape mimicking trees, grass, mountains and even weather like fog or rain as he has painted over it. David Tress seems to use these textures to his advantige with each layer adding its own detail and character. With the thick layering of paint it give the landscapes a vibrant dramatic feel while still having an abstract look to them.

Drawing Building a Texture ..5th January

Building a Texture ..5th January

With this being the first day back from the Christmas holidays, I was ready to get back into my work again. With Mondays still being dedicated to drawing, I was interested to see what we'd be doing. First we had an introduction on what we'd be doing for the rest of the day, which was the same as the last couple of months. We were ready to create some art.

We were given an A1 piece of paper and had to build a surface on the paper using the materials given to us; such as different papers, cardboard, string and sand. With a range of medium, and a variety of ways to use them, it was an interesting and creative exercise. This was not only because of the different outcomes that we were all going to have, but also because we were making the background textures without knowing what we will be painting or drawing on top of it next week.

I started by searching through the collection of materials. As I was looking through I had to think carefully about what I wanted my background texture to look like. With no idea of what I will be painting onto the A1 page, I could only work on the composition and layout of the contrasting textures I'd be applying on the page. Having taken some of the brown paper and scrunching it up, I started ripping and gluing the pieces on top of the A1 sheet, layering sections on top of one another. Once I'd covered most of the page with the paper, I started cutting different sized rectangles out of cardboard and gluing them to the top right corner, slowing getting smaller as they got closer to the centre of the page.

With more brown paper, I started to cover some of the cardboard to build the surface even more. I slowly added extra texture. Finally I cut, ripped and separated the corrugated cardboard and placed that on top of the other layers, taking different aspects of the corrugated cardboard and gluing them to the A1 sheet.

Once I was happy with the layers I had made, it was then time to cover the lot with a mix of glue and white paint, in order to have a clear page to work on top of next week.