Like many painters, Edmonson wavers between the compulsion to seek clarity in his renderings of subject matter and the impulse to transform real-life structures into abstract, shadowy forms. In an effort to succeed at both, he has originated a technique of partial revelation. Edmonson superimposes grids that act as frames for individual rectangles of the landscapes, making them appear displaced in time and space. The scenes appear in blocks, like pixels in a digital photograph viewed at a low resolution. Yet each section contains a portion of the continuous whole. As an illusionary effect, it’s quite startling to see how a change of saturation or hue can make a section advance or recede.

Edmonson’s previous paintings realistic scenery have obviously provided him with a wealth of subjects taken from country landscapes. Yet other than their dreamlike, ephemeral quality, it is difficult to imagine the vistas are fictitious. His use of dark and deeply saturated colours bestows an eerie sense of presence on these works. They appear more like memories of landscapes lost through time, or, as the artist describes them, “a kind of geological strata representing a history of memories”.

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