Provence for years has been feeding Gerard’s deep love for the region and inspiring his creativity. Last year Gerard made a trip to the exact spot where Van Gogh once stood and painted. It was a very emotional journey. Morover it was a great opportunity to master his craft whilst capturing the nature, light and shadows.
Surprisingly Gerry has also found the Provence-like landscape in Poland. A tiny village on the outskirts of Lublin offered a beautiful August light and vast panorama. Previously Gerry has painted Warsaw and his beloved Kazimierz by Wisla River. However this time it was not about the cityscape, architecture and street scenes. This time round it was all about nature, its purity and simplicity. The village is in the East of Poland in the blissful middle of nowhere. It is a place where civilisation is limited to necessity and where peace is the essence of life. It is a kind of place where storks return to every year as it is their home, a place of belonging..
The spirit of the harvest season and the organic farm which Agata’s brother Tomek and his fiancée Jagoda have recently established inspired the artist. The ripe sunflowers from the neighbours front garden captivated Gerard's imagination. Also Agata’s parents, Eliza and Krzysztof, became the protagonists of the summer paintings.
It is not only the Polish landscape that Gerry found was so similar to the French Provence. It was the light, the shadow cast on fields, the forests wild and yet serene. And finally it was the curiosity of the local people who were probably seeing an artist painting plein-air for the first time in their lives. And a foreign artist as well! Art is a language known by all. Therefore Gerry could communicate through it his appreciation and gratitude for Poland, its people and nature.
The clear baby blue coloured sky (Gerry’s favourite!) and tiny clouds scattered across were subject of innovation to Gerry. In Ireland clouds bring rain and obstruct the light. Often they prevent Gerard from painting outdoors. Clouds in the Polish Provence represented more of the freedom and lightness, innocence and serenity. Gerry’s thinking outside-of-the-box sparked innovation yet again. Hence when he had run out of large size canvases he decided to capture the scenery on two or three smaller canvases. (as seen on pictures below). His creative mind is always ready for constant discovery of possibilities and adjusting to circumstances.