Greece and painting and me by Lynne Cameron, Artist
I’ve spent holidays in the Mani since my first visit to Stoupa in the early 1990s. Some years I explored other parts of Greece but since I started coming to Kardamili, I find that everything I need is here. My paints, sketchbook and canvases come with me, and each summer offers some new art challenge.
I think the gods must laugh when we artists try to paint Greece. Having provided the landscape and the light, they watch us mortals as we attempt to capture something of its beauty on paper or canvas.
Despite the grandeur of the mountains and coastline, it is the specific beauty encountered around every corner that speaks to me and that I want to paint.
It’s not a tidy beauty, but one that glows through tangles, ruins, and history.
Colours and shapes that echo the entwining histories of people and nature. Like the blue-purple flowers of the Morning Glory plant that wrapped itself around the rusting ironwork of an abandoned house. Or the faded grey-blue-green paint peeling off window shutters of an old house down a narrow street. A mass of pink and orange bougainvillea spilling over a wall, and pots of scarlet geraniums against stone and turquoise sea. An orange boat stored under silvery-green olive trees as if to illustrate a lesson on complementary colours. And the olive trees themselves, especially the old, twisted ones with caves and whorls inside their listing trunks.
Last summer I spent hours photographing and drawing trees, experimenting with ways to paint them that could reflect their individual characters. I began a series of ‘Olive tree portraits’ and when I return to the Mani, will continue this work, paying homage to their ageing beauty through my art.