Gordon Dalton

The bursary would significantly develop my practice by expanding my research into Solastalgia – the homesickness we feel for the place we live now as it changes due to environmental and political issues. Based on the North East coast, this is a major theme in my work which has both personal and universal themes.

My paintings are concerned with an idea of a place and contemporary landscape painting. There is the melancholy of longing for the past and the optimism and wanting a better future – an unfashionable romanticism grounded in the act of painting. My practice looks at how the North East coast and its communities have been shaped by both natural and industrial developments, bearing both their scars and benefits.

The bursary would allow intensive research exploring new approaches to scale, materiality and methods in my approach to making paintings, with a view to studying nostalgia and populism in landscape painting. I am interested in what represents ‘landscape painting’ to various communities in the North East, what they have in their home, what is represented in our Museums and what landscapes best (or worst) best embody the North East. This would be done via research and collaborations with institutions, communities, field work, archive research and online survey.

Using George Perec’s Species of Space, Wordsworth’s Guide to the Lakes and W.G Sebald’s Rings of Saturn as reference material, this taxonomy would not only contain geographical categorisations, but personal histories and narratives of where people live, work and visit, giving a fresh perspective of the North East landscape in the 21st Century as the world changes around us.

This ‘guide’ to North East landscapes will become the subject matter of a new body of work to be exhibited in Darlington, with the potential to be the theme of a curated exhibition looking at landscape painting in the UK.

The bursary would pay for dedicated research time, travel costs and materials, with a view having a printed and online guide.