Welcome to Mike Newton's website of his contemporary oil paintings. His work explores various aspects of melacholia using traditional methods of oil paint on canvas and on wooden panels. These themes range from "despairing under a cloud of black" associated with a sense of loss or impotence, to the Neo-Platonic concept of melancholia as an emotional state surrounded with the halo of the sublime.
"My interest in melancholia relates primarily to the word's use as a (poetic) term for a mood of self-absorbed sadness resulting from a personal loss of some kind. The nature of this loss may not be known consciously but its manifestation can range from sullen brooding through to withdrawal into a state of inactivity bordering on death."
"Today melancholia is an outmoded category associated often with the blues or painful nostalgia and whilst I want my paintings to have a contemporary relevance, I do not see my work as social realism and hopefully the strange landscapes ensure there is room for the construction of different narratives and meanings."