Venice - A New Vision

Update January 2009

Venice. Use all the adjectives you can and still you will never capture its beauty, mystique and the miraculous colours that play upon this magical place.

I first saw Venice in 1951. Over many subsequent visits, I painted palace façades, gondolas and canals - much as other artists in past centuries. And I was delighted to do so.

In recent years the focus changed for me. I began to observe closely the lagoon upon which the city was built. Indirectly, I began to paint mirrored reflections in the canal waters.

As time past, this became altogether too tame a subject. Instead, I saw a distillation through the movement of waters agitated by the activity of the city. That movement, itself, became a part of the picture, if not the whole - a myriad of shapes and colours.
Undulations became swirls and swirls became vortexes. Boats, buildings and people blended and merged into a pattern of elusive colours, an optical puzzle.

Painted by so many artists through the centuries, I aspired to my new focus on the ever-changing dance of canal waters stirred by Venetian vessels.

Francis Kelly