Kirkcudbright Castle, Reflections 1916

Samuel Peploe made this painting of Kirkcudbright Castle with reflections using oil paint, at an unknown date. The marks here are so direct and chunky, you can tell Peploe really enjoys the stuff, the paint, that is! It’s all about the physical process: dabbing, smearing, and letting the colours bump into each other. Look at how he renders the reflection. You can see the hand of the artist there in those deliberate, almost playful strokes. He makes art by doing it. I love how he teases out the forms from these simple blocks of colour. There’s a tension between representation and abstraction, a push and pull that keeps it lively. It reminds me of Cezanne, in that way, taking apart the world and putting it back together again with paint. Both painters really understood that the subject of painting is painting itself. Like the work of someone like Lois Dodd, it's so exciting to me when an artist is as into the world as they are into paint!