Paintings from the Alpes-Maritimes: Leon Morrocco

I have spent a great deal of time working in the South of France over the last three years. My son, Pierre-Paulo, lives in a house fifteen kilometres from Nice with the mountains of the Alpes Maritimes rising above it. When I first went to stay with him, my drawings concentrated on the coast around Cagnes-sur-Mer and the harbour at Cros-de-Mer. Mediterranean fishing villages had always fascinated me and drawing the boats and harbour life was familiar and comfortable. Yet, over the decades, affluence and modernisation had inevitably tidied up the coast and somehow it became harder to find subjects that were visually interesting. Before long I felt I had exhausted their possibilities and instead started to explore inland, towards the mountains.

The Alpes Maritimes dominate the coastline. Even in my son’s home I became fascinated by how their parched, grey rocks created an incredible foil to the deep blues of the swimming pool and surrounding trees and foliage. This was unfamiliar terrain for me, but the elements balanced effortlessly: the contrasting colours of background and foreground, the rigid composition of the mountains against the fluid shapes of the trees, even the swimmers seemed vital to the whole.

As I adjusted to working in this new environment, I moved further inland, increasingly overwhelmed by the scale of and variety of the Alpes Maritimes. The escarpments, gorges and mountain villages demanded a robust interpretation of the landscape. Drawing helped me wrestle with these new, formal problems and, above all, how to convey the monumentality and the daunting scale of the landscape. Drawing became my starting point for all the paintings which evolved later in the studio. They convey my first impressions and carry the emotional power I discovered in this new environment. Drawing gave me the visual tools and the structure I needed to move forward with my final paintings with freedom and clarity.

The paintings and drawings I made of the Alpes Maritimes represent a new departure in my work. The change is not a contradiction of what went before, but I hope conveys the sense of excitement I found in discovering such a demanding and spectacular place. This was artistic rock-climbing in every sense, with its own feeling of exhilaration when everything came together.

A small group of works will be hung in the back of John Martin Gallery until 16th September 2022.