La Chaleur et Le Coeur de La Provence

Sometimes you come across a landscape and you think, “Actually, I could spend a very long time here.” That’s the way I often feel about lavender fields, especially remote ones. Although not naturally occurring, the straight lines of richly coloured lavender form a wonderful contrast to the less formal but greater beauty of nature. It’s all a contrast to the sights experienced in the daily lives of most of us.

With this Lavender Fields oil painting we are encouraged to be still: to step out of our daily existence for just a moment and rest among the lavender; to feel the heat of the Provençal sun on our backs and listen to the cicada.

In these moments it’s always a two way experience. As you relax and release your burdens for a moment, what do you receive in return? What is it that perhaps we’ve lost sight of in the daily grind of life? What do we want back?

The answer is rarely ‘material goods’. Few people reach the end of their span wishing that they’d spent more time at the office.

'La Chaleur et Le Coeur de La Provence' challenges us to release ourselves from the familiar grind and to raise our sights; to seek Something more enduring.

I have made a time-lapse film showing the creation of this oil painting, condensing 4 months of work into 90 seconds. It can be seen, along with several other time-lapse films of my work, on my Youtube Channel.