Neil Raitt's paintings are compositions of endlessly repeated cabins, mountains, ponds, trees and other natural motifs. Exploring the idea of repetition itself as a form of abstraction, Raitt's work addresses landscape painting and the accessibility of its figurative form. With gestures adopted from Bob Ross' television program The Joy of Painting, Raitt utilises identifiable imagery in his intricate patterns that suspend the atmospheric effect of landscape and its illusion of space, dispersing any sense of perspective. His labyrinthine patterning and ceaseless repetition suggest the imagery upon the canvas as a limitless flat patchwork that stretches into infinity. While Raitt's work implies an accelerated machine-like production process, his work is borne of time-consuming and heavily laboured oil painting. Raitt's technical skill in painting modernises the traditional landscape, deconstructing its figurative language with an approach that is neither wholly kitsch nor fully abstracted.
