For many summers, my husband, Peter, and I have returned to his birthplace - Cornwall. In the farthest western tip of the United Kingdom, Cornwall is a land of one-lane, two-way stone lined hedgerow lanes; open moors; wild ponies; herds of sheep; palm trees; wild flowers; estuaries; stone circles; iron age villages; amazing gardens; two coastlines (the English Channel and the Atlantic Ocean) and is divided from England by the River Tamar. Only a few miles apart, each coast has it own personality with its own micro-climate - warm and protected or harsh and wind-swept. Guided by ordinance survey maps, if we are not backing up our family’s very small car while nose-to-nose with a Lorry or pulling in our side mirrors to allow another car to pass, we spend much of our time on foot exploring pre-Roman paths on ancient Bodmin Moor or wandering through working fishing villages.
Peter carries his Canon 50D; and I pack my acrylic paints, watercolor paper and a sketchbook everywhere we travel. As an illustrator, my earlier paintings were often tight and exact, but in 2008, began looking at the abstract landscapes of Peter Lanyon at the Tate in St. Ives. After many small works that looked like Lanyon knock-offs, I finally began painting in two very different styles - very loose, abstracted coastlines and detailed morphs of possible tidal pools.
Cornwall Tidal Pools #1
Cornwall Tidal Pools #2
Cornwall Tidal Pools #3
Cornwall Tidal Pools #4
Cornwall Tidal Pools #5
All five of the paintings above, along with four of my handmade paper artworks, will be on display at Main Street Art Gallery in Edwardsville, IL at the E.L.E.M.E.N.T.S. show July 23 - August 28 2010. Please join us for the opening on July 23 from 6-8pm.
No comments:
Post a Comment