The story behind the painting.
Prospect Cottage at Dungeness occupies an unusual place in the cultural landscape. It is both a real, recognisable building and something approaching a cultural and historical memory — a place strongly identified with Derek Jarman, with his garden, his films and with the particular melancholy of Dungeness itself.
It has also been painted by artists….. a lot! I’ve previously painted the view from the back of the cottage, but it always draws you in, excuse the pun!
I wanted to paint it at the moment when the sense of life is especially apparent: the transition from daylight into the blue hour. At this time of day the cottage normally appears dull and empty of emotion, with its familiar form becoming part of the sparse, timeless and darkening landscape. There is always a sense of something preserved — a national treasure frozen in time, but it appears lifeless compared to neighbouring properties.
But Blue Prospects introduces a small disruption to that expectation! Here, I’ve captured two forms of light rarely depicted in the myriad of painted interpretations of the cottage, probably because it’s a difficult moment to capture in art.
You can just see the last remnants of the sunset catching the extremities of the roof and garden sculpture. The warm light from inside the cottage suggests that something is still happening there. Human presence has returned to a landscape that can otherwise feel empty. The light spilling from the windows becomes almost physical, extending beyond the walls of the cottage into its surroundings as the last breath of daylight fades.
The question is deliberately ambiguous: who is looking in, and…who is looking out?
That ambiguity matters. From outside, the illuminated rooms invite us to imagine the lives being lived within them. From inside, the same windows become frames through which the vast, darkening landscape is observed. Have you been spotted? The painting therefore places the viewer somewhere between the two — neither completely inside nor outside, but looking for the connection between them.
The title carries the idea further. Blue not only acknowledges that special form of light that we call the blue hour, but inevitably, Jarman’s final film, Blue. Prospects refers directly to Prospect Cottage, but also to the possibility of what lies ahead. The light becomes a quiet counterpoint to the melancholy of the setting: not optimism in any conventional sense, but the suggestion that something can continue beyond what has already been lost to the past.
In that respect, the painting is as much about time as it is about place. It holds a moment between day and night, between memory and presence, between what has been and what might yet happen. During the blue hour, we famously switch on our lights, but don’t immediately draw the curtains. It’s a fabulous time for a walk!
Blue Prospects asks the viewer to inhabit that moment for a little longer — and to decide for themselves what they are seeing in that light.
Prints
Prints of Blue Prospects are available, and produced for me by a Platinum-certified printshop on museum-grade Hahnemühle archival paper. Their prints are stunning.
Full size 570mm print — £200
12″ print — £99
Custom sizes are also available.
Free P&P to any UK address. Email me for details.
Prints are also available for my original painting of the cottage, shown below..
