John Slavin Art

La Fajòla

The sun is setting on an evening after the equinox, beyond the high peaks of the Eastern Pyrenees. In the Langue d'Oc 'La Fajòla' may be associated with that bundle of sticks known as the faggot. This faggot was put in the service of the Inquisition in the burning of heretics and so the place may be either the site of such burnings or, conversely, a place of refuge. The colours in the painting are based on black. In my many visits to the viewpoint, I have seen the intensity of the setting sun paint the trees red, bent to lift the bells of flowers in blue and felt the flame of life itself in the refuge of study and painting. [In the private collection of Philip Differ @10/22]

Original
Acrylic on canvas
60cm x 60cm
Can be seen at Scottish Storytelling Centre
Sold

Axat

At the entrance of the deep gorge of the River Aude stands a great mass of mountain rock. This painting is made from references to 9th-century Chinese art and from one swift drawing, pencil hanging in blind vertigo.

The Painting is available at Tyrrell Art Gallery
https://www.tyrrellartgallery.com/artists/john-slavin/

Original
Acrylic on canvas
50cm x 50cm
Can be seen at Scottish Storytelling Centre

The Black Fountain's Peak

The black mass of the mountain contains snow in its crevasse. The surface is treated in a limited range of green and grey to depict pit, abyss, chasm at this evening moment of moonrise. To the left a tree, a cloud, a crescent, a star ascending.

Original
Acrylic on canvas
60cm x 60cm
Can be seen at Scottish Storytelling Centre

Roc Jalere

This rock with a hole in the middle seems to be an eyeless socket. The white flowers are ciste and the mountain beyond left is Canigou.

Original
Acrylic on canvas
60cm x 60cm
Can be seen at John Slavin Morningside
Sold

Above the Col du Paradis

The passage of the moon predicts snow. A large white mountain dog runs on the pathway between the trees of light and the trees of darkness. The deep sides of the rounded mountains plunge into the light of the world.

Original
Oil on canvas
80cm x 80cm
Can be seen at Scottish Storytelling Centre

Bacou

As our planet turns towards night long shadows finger the farmland of Bacou on its high plateau. Bacou is Bacchus.

Original
Acrylic on canvas
50cm x 60cm
Can be seen at Scottish Storytelling Centre

Le Puig de Campcardos

The architecture of the peak is an intensely detailed tour de force of chaos; nature's form interpreted in a way which seeks to present the prime imagination at work. This mountain is in the Catalan Pyrenees.

Original
Acrylic on canvas
80cm x 80cm
Can be seen at Scottish Storytelling Centre

Pic Negre d'Envalira

Lemon light streams from a midsummer sun high above. The mountain peak is immediately present, deeply scarred. Pocked with snowy punctuation, the dangerous way permits a view of rocky detail. In the distance left the chain fades to blue.

Original
Acrylic on canvas
79cm x 79.5cm
Can be seen at Scottish Storytelling Centre

Bugarach East Face

A heat storm over the sea arrives at the eastern portals of the Bugarach. Terrific clouds rise up in immeasurable swells of brilliant or black cumulus. The sky is green. Trees have been posted as sentinels. A potent earthy red complements the green of the growing storm throughout, as if, in the iridescence of a double rainbow, chords of colour are inverted. The elements seem to modulate; cloud has the quality of mountain, air of earth. Red is green, black is white. As the Bugarach rises through and beyond the world so rises the storm, inflating his mirror with hot respiration, a mountain turning in time with the Mediterranean engendered storm in a massive visionary ball. (Also titled 'East of Bugarach')

Original
Acrylic on canvas
60cm x 50cm
Can be seen at Scottish Storytelling Centre

Sarrat Cayrol Forest Dusk

The weary traveller finds an idyllic spot where a fire may be made and a gurgling stream listened to. Among large mossy boulders pine and beech rise to obscure the starry heavens. All is at the extreme of day; only afterglow makes the scene visible.

Original
Oil on canvas
70cm x 50cm
Can be seen at John Slavin Morningside
Sold