William Curtis

Over the years William Curtis has stored up his travel impressions and observations in small, portable notebooks. His sketches record sites visited and places seen, but they also penetrate to the essential qualities of buildings experienced. By degrees the drawings of ruins and landscapes take on a life of their own as abstract configurations of lines, a personal calligraphy of spaces and horizons. Thus the artist's vocabulary of forms is constantly nourished by observation and transformation.

Curtis's itineraries have taken him far and wide: Ancient Egypt, the temples of India and south east Asia, the platforms of Mexico, the ruins of Greece and Rome, Machu Picchu, the coasts of the Canary islands, New England and the islands of the Baltic Sea. Beyond individual images, general themes emerge which interact with the artist's "mental landscape" paintings and drawings. For example, he returns constantly to configurations of horizontal layers recalling both geological strata and architectural platforms. There is a constant oscillation between sketches of particular places and the creation of abstract spaces and forms.