Bob Aldous is primarily an abstract painter using wide range of media that are applied to silk that has been treated and sized, so that thicker impasto can work alongside delicate watercolour glazes.

He works in a way by which each mark interacts and inform the next brush stroke he is about to make. Using a wide range of brushes, broad marks are made with decorator’s brushes or large Chinese brushes and finer mark making are made with fine sable brushes or pencil. Central to my mark making is an aspiration for spontaneity. This spontaneous quality is sometimes hard to achieve, silk is an unforgiving surface in which each mark needs to be placed confidently. “After meditating on a work for some time I use my “minds eye” to contemplate where the next mark is to be placed, I will then work rapidly and instinctively.”

The paintings are inspired by water in all its forms: this may be a mountain stream, a calm lake reflecting the sky or a tumultuous sea tempest. Silk is an ideal surface as a substrate to my painting technique as it has a fine translucent surface, which is ideal for recreating the transparent quality of water. Throughout his career Bob Aldous has sketched water and been fascinated by trying to capture its movement and vitality. These sketches have been absorbed into his painting vocabulary and he now paint from memory. This gives the work a quality that “crosses the boundary between reality and dreams”.