Statement Piers Browne t/a The Shorthorn Press for his etchings (VAT no 675494880): Diana Armfield RA and her husband Bernard Dunstan RA, kindly wrote Piers at the end of September 2009: "We both admire the wonderful intensity of your vision, and in some of your oils, the handling, the rythmn of the paint marks make for a strange beauty all your own...and the etchings are superb". Head swells here - sorry! Piers writes: "From 2008 my focus has been on LIGHT itself through swathes of colour on multi-plate etchings (as in “Basking baking under sunlight…” see under ETCHINGS FOR SALE); warm and cold shades of primary colours HAVE to be analysed, fixed and printed to overlap and make the 'hum', the 'buzz', the vibration of colours which excites me. Through this analysis via etching, which is an easy way to seperate and overlap colours, my Oil paintings are taking on a luminosity, an iridescence.(See the WINTER DUSK, NEW YEAR'S DAY Oil - and its Etching too on the site, and especially the new 'stripey' Oil 'ADDLEBROUGH: March afternoon') At last this artist has a cause, as this is a worthwhile motivation for years to come - and now the Aegean, where I half live now, is motivating a lot of Oils of barren hillside almond and olive grove with distant blue-sea.(See in Oils for sale here) For 31 years I have mostly married Wensleydale’s forms, vertical things like trees and buildings therein, with form and light of equal importance. Sky and land's objects can still be allied, but painting pure seascapes of late (prior to the Aegean theme) has considerably helped me turn my focus to light being dominant. The sea is a plain in reality, a mirror to the sky, yet terrific movement within and on the surface I know. A perturbed sea is even more stimulating to my creative juices, but light on sea is always moving whereas, frankly, landscape can be petrified and objects become too easily the focus. That is why i 'do' panoramas, as more chance to study movement (of light) and harmony of sky to land. I have been working on 3ft square Oils concerned with the disgusting pillage of our Earth's landscape with polluting things ... see a large Oil of Canary Wharf (see PAINTINGS FOR SALE), and also some large new oils combine a simple love of landscape with human passion, allying human emotions with Nature is in continuance of our Romantic tradition inspired by Keats, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Shelley and possibly others. so I've done a series -which i won't release until the right gallery takes an interest. I keep adding to these oils , and store them. They are precious and need to be shown together. The Romantic Poets and the Screwing the Earth series of oils are a distraction from the move to 'coming out' as a pure colourist and studier of LIGHT and becoming almost a 'Bridget Riley' without the , to me, trying optical distortions. At least she creates movement, but so tiring for my eye! "I don't concentrate on making large handmade books, they just seem or seemed to happen either when I was emotionally aroused or wish to understand and pay homage to a poet - Housman or Wordsworth; they have kept me on the rails in a way through' long sessions in the etching studio - and long, happy researching on barren hillsides in all weathers! In over thirty years as a full-time Painter-Printmaker, SONNETS FOR A SIREN, my third handmade collection, has just been released in an edition of 20 for sale privately - there are 10 left. My other handmade equally large and pricey books were long projects fitted in-between oils and etchings-makings, and are mainly of English landscape. My sea obsession started with the SONNETS book. Bound books are a superb way of preserving a suite of etchings from daylight fading and keeping a series of etchings in one place: A Shropshire Lad took 10 years to make; William Wordsworth: A Lakeland Anthology 3 years; and now the SONNETS one.it took a great 15 years for The Glorious trees of Great Britain , publ. John Murray in 2002, to come out, but having both 167 etchings within and some huge ones reproduced therein, it was impossible to bind the book for a connoisseur market with silver jacket covers etc as for the Sonnets book, so it was a large mass public 'coffee=table' book instead. Seascapes are in evidence under OILS on this site, though many have sold and so are not recorded here. Travelling to monitor new colour combinations (as to silvery hued Holland Easter 2008 .. see OILS) does make me the more appreciate (simply in a Cezannesque way) that local scenery in the Dales does absorb amazing LIGHT, and is all one needs to perpetuate my sort of landscape's beauty in art.art. I trained hard to draw and from oils and drawings to make etchings - acres of them - of Wensleydale/Scotland/the Channel Islands/Sicily/ Iceland/ Italy/ France esp CEVENNES area /Cyprus/Greece/ Poland/Morocco/Africa's savannas where I walked in-advisably for a time alone etc.but to study completely one's own LIGHT is what Cezanne understood was essential for a landscape painter. Traveling is immaterial tho' refreshes the eyes to one's own land or seascape: without doubt the FORMS one knows best are the best recipients for really getting down light and movement and a deep analysis of the colour vibrations and harmonies . It was very gratifying when the poet, publisher and philanthropist Felix Dennis bought in 2001 over 170 of my tree etchings, ones repro'd in the Glorious Trees of Gt Britain book. More recently I've had success with the Bodleian & Cambridge University Libraries as well as 7 individuals all buying the handmade SONNETS book completed January '08. The two children's books - huge projects as I used for the music Lindisfarne, Lorraine Chase, Mike Harding, Mike Burns, Hugh Quarshie etc etc as voice over's and singers and backing, and had arrangements by C Cattle, M Frankland and the late Peter Gabriel's arranger Dave Bainbridge - sees hopefully by Easter 2011, the completion of one of them FREYA. This book A4 sized will have 50 illustrations, and you can see some in the CHILKDREN'S BOOKS section. Do plz ask Piers for a SEASCAPES catalogue to be posted to you (from SEPT 8th) forhalf price £5 + £4 P&P as it's lovely and over 50 works illustrated in colour! - tho' I say so myself. A Catalogue for my GLORIOUS TREES OF GT BRITAIN is also available on the same terms. The Blake Gallery in York has catalogues too, as well as many etchings and oils of mine. My next main One-man show is the sea, the sea, at the Jericho gallery in Oxford - in Jericho St, a tiny street off King Street nr the Ashmolean runs from SEPTEMBER 9th until 3th OCTOBER in the JERICHO GALLERY in tiny Jericho St (off King St)OXFORD - nr the Ashmolean. (gallery open Wed - Sat 10-5.) I will talk about my work probably on SUNDAY 3rd OCT at 2.30pm at the gallery. The show may has over 14 large and small OILS, but they aremy best, and there will be many new etchings, some in b&w, many in colour, AND ALL SEA-BASED. Do ask the Gallery for a small catalogue - or me...there may be one by August. Then, from Sat 23rd October till Sun 7th November inclusive, is a one man of NEW WATERCOLOURS & small new oils at HERRIOTS in Hawes (N.Yorks) which is a 'first'for such medium for Piers.