The curse of Roger Dean

I started a new painting last Summer. It was based on sketches I've made over the years, the oldest of which date from the 1970s and 1980s.

Sometime in the early 1990s I exaggerated the rocky forms in my sketchpads to create this pleasingly shaped rock formation. 

Then I used a version of the drawing in a painting I did for a friend. 

And I've doodled variants of it several times since. I'm not at the Richard Dreyfus Close Encounters of the Third Kind stage yet but it has become a very mild obsession it seems. The shape pleases me very much and I'd always hoped to one day incorporate it into a piece of art that I genuinely love. 

So, let's come right up to date. Around six or seven years ago I started making a conscious effort to learn how to paint. I'd always dabbled and I could draw okay, but painting always eluded me. So I decided to give it a good go. And, after around 50 canvasses or so, things were starting to look like I wanted them to. Therefore, last Summer (and with an art exhibition coming up) I decided to add some paintings to my little catalogue of prints, illustrations and sculptures. And, immediately, I thought about those rocks. Here's how far I'd got by the end of Day 1. 

I was quite pleased with it. 

Until, that is, I posted the WIP on Facebook. 

And every comment - kind or otherwise - likened it to a painting by Roger Dean. 

I immediately lost my enthusiasm for the painting and I've not touched it since.

Dean was such a huge influencer during the 1970s and 80s that his style of artwork became seared into the public consciousness. I wasn't immune to it. Of course I wasn't. I had LPs by Yes and Greenslade that he'd created the sleeves for. I had a poster on my bedroom wall of his album cover for Paladin's Charge! However, it now seems to be the case that you can't paint a curiously shaped rock without someone calling 'Dean!' on you. It's extremely frustrating. As ,much as I love his work and as much as I hugely respect the man ...

ROGER DEAN DOES NOT HAVE THE MONOPOLY ON INTERESTINGLY SHAPED ROCK FORMATIONS! 

For a start, Nature got there first. Just look at these amazing real locations: the Faerie Chimneys of Cappadocia, Turkey; Goblin Valley and Fantasy Canyon in Utah; the Valley of Dreams in New Mexico; the White Desert in Egypt; and even our own Lake District. 

Dean didn't invent these shapes. They have existed for millions of years. Also, I grew up in South-West Cornwall where rain, wind and sea have sculpted the landscape. That end of Cornwall is littered with prehistoric dolmens and quoits too. I've drawn and painted several of them (the final picture is a watercolour I painted in 1982 of Chun Quoit). 

These shapes inspired great artists like Dame Barbara Hepworth and Sir Henry Moore whose work (judging by his architectural designs) probably had an impact on Roger Dean. They certainly influenced my work. And although Dean was the king of the prog rock album cover and bedroom wall poster, he wasn't the only one doing this kind of stuff. Contemporaries like Rodney Matthews were also painting strange landscapes and rock formations. 

Which is why the comment 'It looks like a Roger Dean painting' is both complimentary but also very frustrating. Even more so when, actually, it's not very Roger Dean-like. Dean has a very identifiable painting style that is nothing like mine. He also incorporates distinct visual elements in his work. One is floating rocks and they appear in many of his pieces. They've become a kind of signature. In fact, it's such a Roger Dean thing to do that he took James Cameron to court over scenes in the film Avatar that seemed to be lifted directly from his paintings. However, Dean lost the case - not because there weren't similarities - there are many. He lost because the judge ruled that Dean's ideas, in broad terms, are not unique – there have been weird-shaped rock formations and floating islands and cities in science fiction books and shows like Star Trek, Flash Gordon and Star Wars for decades. There's even one in Gulliver’s Travels (1726). 

Which brings me back to my painting. 

Yes, I acknowledge that there is a Roger Dean influence - more unconscious than conscious - but it's there. But there's also influence from works by the aforementioned Rodney Matthews and Barbara Hepworth, and also Salvador Dali, Patrick Woodroffe, Ian Miller., Tony Cragg, Bruce Pennington and many many other artists. There's also mye memories of the Cornish landscapes where I grew up and of places I've visited and photographed. Just look at this amazing formation from El Golfo on Lanzarote, for example. And there are also those amazing gravity-defying stone balancers out there who make the most amazing shapes. 

We are all the culmination of our life's experiences and, with very few exceptions, an artist's unique vision is formed from the things that have influenced them. Just as Michelangelo, Leonardo and Raphael inspired the artists that came after them, and movements like Cubism, Impressionism and Bauhaus inspired whole generations of new artists, people my age were inspired by the artists we grew up with. 

I acknowledge my influences but my work is my own and I'm not trying to emulate Dean. But I know that if I carry on with the painting, people will carry on saying 'it's a bit Roger Dean-ish'. It's so disheartening.

So, will I finish it?

I don't know.