Birdsong in the Early Summer Morning
by Roger Fisher and Harriet Carter
A shared visual birdsong encounter at Snape Maltings.
© Harriet Carter, 2021
Roger Fisher & Harriet Carter, Birdsong in the Early Summer Morning, 2021.
Oil and chalk on canvas, 28 x 36 cm
My grandfather, marine artist Roger Roland Sutton Fisher passed away when I was a year old. Conversations about our different painting practice aesthetic can only be imagined in visual dialogue.
Two visual voices bond in material harmony in ‘Birdsong in the Early Summer Morning’. The first voice resides in viscose evidence of my grandfather’s gesture - brushstrokes in thick oil. It emanates through the translucency of the second voice as the old oil accepts the new. The cry of the curlews’ zigzag through the landscape in the early morning haze, directed by the thick texture of oil paint underneath. Birdsong travels as ambient light reflects the gold pigment and travels through the translucent forms, lifting the buildings and riverscape as it passes.
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Roger Roland Sutton Fisher C.B.E., D.S.C., R.S.M.A., F.R.S.A (1919 – 1992) was a captain in the Royal Navy, barrister, and marine artist. Composing on his worn sketch ‘Early Summer Morning, Snape Maltings’ initiates a conversation of visual voices, materially conversing about a shared favourite place. ‘Birdsong in the Early Summer Morning’ does not create a story for my grandfather nor speak on his behalf, but instead constructs a dialogue.
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