Warm Undercurrents: A Cool Dip into Spring
Annette Price
In the middle of a hot, muggy British summer, there is something wonderfully refreshing about remembering spring. That moment when winter's greys have finally lifted, the woodland streams are bubbling through the undergrowth, and new life is pushing up everywhere, along the banks, on the stones, in the water itself, little bursts of colour from spring flowers. Warm Undercurrents reflects that freshness.
The title itself carries both halves of the painting. The undercurrents refer to the movement of water in larger streams and rivers flowing through British woodlands and forests, that constant, unseen motion beneath the surface. The warmth comes from the spring environment warming up around it, all that colour and new life gathering along the water's edge.
The painting grew out of several ideas about water, coming together. Imagine swimming underwater in a slow moving river, winding through forest. You are wearing goggles or a mask and looking up towards the surface and seeing the colours of flowers suggested through it. Now imagine standing with your feet in a shallow brook and looking down through the bubbling water at the spray as water splashes over your toes, or sitting in a kayak and feeling the movement of the water beneath the boat. Warm Undercurrents brings those perspectives together, above and below, looking up and looking down, in a single 40 x 40 inch canvas.
Look closely and you'll see two quite different ways of working sitting side by side. The background is built with brushes in soft, warm colours, oranges, blues, whites and yellows, with the greens mixed from them rather than coming straight from a tube. In places the brushwork blends gently, giving that sense of looking dreamily into calm water; in others the strokes become more dynamic, suggesting flowers glimpsed through the surface.
Then the palette knife takes over, and the colours strengthen. The knife marks are primarily a deep red crimson, with splashes of blue, some very dark, some lighter and almost green. Here, several colours are loaded onto the blade at once and swiped straight onto the canvas, so the mixing happens right there on the surface. Oranges, yellows and white are picked up into the dark reds, lightening them and tying them back to the background; reds are mixed into the blues to create purples that do the same. Individual streaks of colour stay visible even as they blend into something new, and here and there you'll find the suggestion of little bubbles rising through the water.
Living with the painting
An original painting is never a static object on the wall, it changes as the light changes. Unlike many of my paintings, Warm Undercurrents does not use texture paste or sand, so its physical surface is subtle, the paint was applied with a palette knife but acrylic dries down flatter than you might expect. What changes instead is the colour. In very soft early morning sunlight the painting's warmth deepens and it looks gorgeous; in cooler light the blues come forward and the mood shifts. Living with an original painting means noticing these changes through the day and across the seasons, and often spotting something new in the work itself, a spot of colour or a mark you hadn't seen before, even months or years after it arrived.
There is also a growing body of evidence that having art in our daily surroundings genuinely supports wellbeing, easing stress and encouraging the kind of open, wandering attention that feeds creative thinking. A calming, warm painting rooted in water, flowers and spring growth brings a little of that restorative quality of nature indoors with it.
The practical details
Warm Undercurrents is painted on a deep canvas, 1.5 inches (38 mm) in depth, with the painting continuing around the edges, so it stands proud of the wall and needs no frame. It has been varnished, both to protect it from UV light and to make it easier to handle and clean over the years. It is signed on the front, signed, dated and named on the back, and comes strung and ready to hang the day it arrives.
Once it is on your wall, you'll find everything you need to keep it looking its best in my guide on how to care for an original painting.
The painting was first shown as part of the Elemental exhibition at the Chelsea Gallery on King's Road in March 2024, and is available to purchase now. If this warm, calming sense of water, plants and flowers glimpsed through the surface and the freshness of spring speaks to you, you can find the piece here: Warm Undercurrents.
