Galleria Lorcan O’Neill presents Landscapes and Waterfalls, the first solo exhibition by British artist David Dawson at the gallery in Rome. The twelve large landscape paintings on view are part of an ongoing body of work that Dawson paints en plein air in his home country in Montgomeryshire, Mid Wales. Initially painted outdoors during each season of the year, the artist continues to work on them in his London studio to then complete them back in the countryside.

About this creative process, which can take years, the artist states:

“Painting to me is about the reality of being in the land and making marks that correlate to me reacting to that experience. You paint what you think you know. When I’m in the land, I always get surprised by what I see, even if I thought I knew the landscape in which I grew up so well. That’s why I need to be there, en plein air. Painting to me is very much about being in the presence of the land”.

Forcing the artist to be alone in the fields, exposed to the elements, Dawson’s canvases are deeply autobiographical as they connect him to his formative years growing up in the countryside, when the artist learned about solitude.

Dawson describes his practice in almost meditative terms: painting the Welsh landscape and its waterfalls, “being in the presence of the land”, becomes a way of getting rid of his ego, to reach a feeling of connection and communion with nature.