Oliver Heywood - LATER WORK 1

LATER WORK 1:

The Cotswolds, Scotland, Greece & Africa

From the mid-1960s onwards, Oliver’s work developed into a style that he refined and worked with for the rest of his life. The two extremes of the early watercolours and the abstracts came together and informed the later paintings. They became at the same time representational and abstract, with close details of flora and fauna combined with a sense of depth and pure colour. They were at times almost sculptural, inviting the eye to travel into the open spaces between the detail. In a Cotswold landscape, for example, you may begin by seeing the shape of the hills, the wide horizon. Then you are drawn into the foreground, where you may find cornflowers, scabious, poppies and butterflies. Drawn in still further, you may come to wide abstract space that gives the painting a dimension beyond the descriptive.

Oliver was often reluctant to describe his work in words. He wanted each person to approach a painting without being first told what they should see…