Suburbs Postcode SM2, 2018
IDN or Ian David Newman (b.1953, U.K.) creates paintings about the land that deal with the the real world of everyday experience before nature. This comes from his belief that, in the twenty-first century, there is a tiredness in the viewer that comes from over familiarity or white noise, and this can only really be addressed and overcome if the artist shares visual experience in a direct and subtle way. Today, the idea of painting landscape can appear fraught with clichés and stereotypes -preventing the essential power and poetry of the subject to be experienced and appreciated. The challenge for the artist is to make afresh that which is in a state of flux, to in some way convey the permanent sense of wonder and life affirming power to be found in the most familiar locale.
IDN trained at The Brighton School of Art, and subsequently taught fine art. He closely mentored those he taught and remains an incisive original thinker: “How does drawing make one see things clearer?” or “How can we engage afresh with that which is most familiar to us”? His gouache paintings reflect on these reductive and abiding preoccupations. All the images explore his unique language about terrains, landscapes and viewpoints in terms of lines, mark making and brushstrokes. His method of application interchangeably using gouache, stencils and spray encourages the viewer to analyse texture, colour and tone but also encompass the work as a whole- enigmatic and physical.