William Gregory

Georgia O’Keeffe said, ‘Objective painting is not good painting unless it is good in the abstract sense. A hill or tree cannot make a good painting just because it is a hill or tree. It is lines and colours put together so that they may say something.’ I tried to follow her advice and make a series of circular improvisations based on flowers fro our garden in Spain. I had seen the lovely architectural drawings of Borromini’s elaborate ground plans for the churches S. Ivo della Sapienza, and S. Carlo Alle Quattro Fontane and I wanted this level of delicacy and intricacy. Because I had to do quite a lot of drawings to get the ones I wanted and I didn’t have time to copy them again, I used the paper in this final composition. The colour of the board showing through is a strong feature of the painting.