Baile Hill ii by Jake Attree

In Jake's own words:
The largest painting in this show and its two corresponding oil pastels – “The Procession to Calvary, after Pieter Bruegel the Elder” – are part of an ongoing obsession with that particular artist.  At school in York many years ago, I came across a book on “North European Painting” in which there were reproductions of Bruegel’s “The Hunters in the Snow” and “The Gloomy Day” from the Seasons series.  I was struck by how much “The Gloomy Day” reminded me of standing on Baile Hill in York with my father when I was a young boy.  Baile Hill is an earthwork that originally had a wooden bailey tower on its summit, which was used to watch the River Ouse for possible invasion. The two small canvases of Baile Hill and the larger version on panel are equally testament to an obsession with the site as a potential subject, impacted with memory and the continuing exercise of drawing the site with the intention of renewing those early sensations through empirical experience.