'There is something deeply intuitive about these works: alternately insistent, lyrical, emphatic and searingly emotive. This is painting from the heart, in its purest form.'
Iain Gale, catalogue essay, September 2006

This exhibition was awarded as part of the Glasgow Arts Club Fellowship which I won for my work '... there be Dragons' at the RSW in 2005. This new body of work represents my continuing efforts to make sense of the ever-changing world around me and my place in it. Recent events in my life [including the birth of my children and the deaths of my parents] have made me acutely aware of life and death and caused me to ponder my own place in the continuum. Early works inspired by impending fatherhood and the birth of my son have led to a series of works that take the form of mixed media paintings and collages. In these works I have been experimenting with non-representational subjective matter with a particular focus on mark-making and the power of these ‘abstract’ marks to evoke an emotional response. The title of the painting that won the award, ‘… there be Dragons’, alludes to the sense I have of working in ‘uncharted territory’. The work is intuitive and relies heavily on an ability to ‘let go’ and to trust in an innate sense of composition, colour and form - and a sensitivity to the signs created, and their meanings. In the process of working I set up a dialogue between myself and the marks I am making in which questions are posed and answers attempted. Each answer uncovers a further question and I continue with this action/reaction until a kind of equilibrium is achieved - with only the right questions remaining. It is these remaining questions that bring life to the work. For this Fellowship exhibition I have chosen a collection of work that documents this evolution and explains the narrative of this very personal journey.

Christopher Wood, September 2006

I am very grateful to the following companies for their generous support of this exhibition: