CORNELIUS QUABECK LAVENDER FALLS

Text: Cornelius Quabeck

On our way back from Corsica we stayed overnight in La Ciotat, a tiny city in Southern France with an industrial past.

I saw on Insta that Adam from New York was staying nearby. He had just posted a bike ride with his husband in Cassis. We decided to stop by and ended up having lunch with them, white wine, fresh figs, salad and cheese.

When it was time for us to hit the road again, Adam recommended a detour to pass by the most beautiful field of lavender he himself had ever seen. Ok, I thought, Lavender, enemy of moths, as tea to be preferred cold, its oil a natural sleeping aid.

After a short drive we got to the field he had spoken of. The combination of colours, some kind of violet blue with green topped off with a horizon of trees and a blue sky with white clouds - it just looked surreal. There was the lay of the land, all herbs planted in rows that seemed to narrow in the distance, and then there was the smell of course.

Later, at the Musée Courbet in Ornans, I saw one of the last van Gogh paintings. He had painted a field with his dense rhythmic brushwork depicting a couple, exhausted and redfaced, resting in the shadow of a giant haystack and that’s when I decided to give landscape painting a go myself.

When constant alarm appears to be the general vibe in life and all its devices, when the daily news makes us wear mouthguards in our sleep, maybe the artist studio can be the place for some peace and quiet?, I thought. Painting one picture after the other, with a drop of lavender oil for safety measures. Slightly hyperbolic, as I felt reminded of Wayne Thiebaud's paintings of San Francisco when I was working. Finally I turned them into portrait format. The beach towels of painting, or simply paintings to calm down.