Jon Pountain Merseyside, United Kingdom

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I am a Liverpool based painter and a member of Bridewell Studios. My work embraces the mystical and metaphysical. My latest paintings “The Sacred Mountain’ offer the viewer a journey into a place between worlds, bathed in the light of the moon, they are steeped in stillness and a connection to something ancient within the land and ourselves.

My moonlit series of mountain paintings are formed from the reoccurring symbolic motifs of the colour blue, mountains, moons, stars and water. All of these elements are sacred in many cultures and are often the embodiments of goddesses, deities and spirits. I am drawn to the ancient, mystical and deep connection we have always had with nature, the cosmos and to spirit worlds. When I paint, I connect to the subconscious and this sense of ancient belonging. I have sought to express stillness and otherworldliness. These are landscapes for an alternate state of consciousness, places of meditation and transition to other realities. The colour blue ultramarine, ‘lapis lazuli’ or ‘heaven stone’ provides a celestial quality and threads its way throughout my paintings. My approach is intuitive, sometimes I begin by using a visual reference but mostly I work from imagination, memory, and the suggestions of brush marks and the paint itself. I have always felt drawn to expressing light and its radiance, it’s an integral part of my process. I build up many thin layers using washes of paint. Predominantly I use Flashe vinyl acrylic paint which has a completely flat matte velvet finish and allows me to explore depth through darker tones.