If something looks simple, it may require you to look better. Not more closely. Better. The seemingly abstract colour fields of canvas that make up Mick's paintings do exactly that. Every shape in these paintings flow over the edge of the work, suggesting that we are looking at a small part of something bigger, a rectangular image cut out of a larger view, a framed portion of a landscape. Blue fields start to become water or sky. And even non-realistic colours convey a sense of landscape seen from an overhead perspective, or a house viewed from below, the camera angle slanted. We are looking at Mick's memories, places and moments he has witnessed, and which we outsiders can never really visit, but which - if we look a little better - partially reveal themselves.
Text: Michiel Westbeek / Photo: Thiemi Higashi