‘‘Far North Stories’’, Scott McFarlane
(Pea Sea Art) THERE is an astonishing air of depth and mystery to the semiabstract landscapes of Scott McFarlane.
Painted in bold strokes over a gesso base deliberately left uneven, the works have a luminosity which intensifies the cryptic, halfglimpsed scenes depicted. Figures are often implied as much as painted, against anthropomorphic landscapes where heads are hills and hills are torsos. The dreamlike landforms of master surrealist Max Ernst seem to be a touchstone, at least subconsciously, in many of these haunted scenes, and several of that artist’s techniques, such as decalcomania (the pressing of wet paint on to the canvas by a flat surface that is then quickly removed to leave a treelike pattern) are used in McFarlane’s art. The mastery of this style to such excellent effect is impressive, as are many of the hypnotic images achieved.
Alongside these works, it would be easy to overlook three more pieces. One of these,
Edible Geography, combines a series of enigmatic figures and a distant treelined horizon with bold fields of bright colour. The remaining pieces are two sombre landscapes in tones of sepia and bistre brown that owe a lot to Symbolist art. They are a fine illustration that there is a lot more than one string to McFarlane’s artistic bow.