Viewpoints: Languid, luminous, lush landscapes of Scotland, Wales and Cornwall at the&Gallery, Edinburgh
As the British Isles unite together during this global crisis, the& Gallery, Edinburgh has brought together three artists from Scotland, Wales and England, who complement each other with vivid expressions of their personal sense of place.
Along with Brittany, Isle of Man and Ireland, these home nations share the ancient traditions of Celtic culture, heritage and language. As abstract landscape painters, Anna Somerville, Elfyn Lewis and David Mankin celebrate the natural outdoor world around them with inspirational vision.
Anna Somerville graduated from the Edinburgh College of Art in 2000, winning the Elizabeth Blackadder & John Houston Travel Award, which set her off on a very successful career. At her studio at Summerhall, Edinburgh, she works in mixed media – spray paint, ink, graphite, oil pastel – on paper, linen or canvas, and you can see, at a glance, the layering technique of colour with mesmerising effect.
Aqua Coast Scape, Anna Somerville
Anna is constantly drawn to the seashore, such as Aqua Coast Scape, focussing on the distant horizon, the expanse of water beneath a cloudy sky, a slither of a sand dune and rocks. The streaking lines and layers blend various hues of colour together to create a marvellous mishmash of turquoise, emerald, orange, coral, pink, plum and damson.
With a bold use of colour and brash brushstrokes, there are occasional drips of paint adding texture and atmosphere, depicting perhaps, an approaching rainstorm. She describes her approach as instinctual, drawing from emotions rather than exploring any particular theme or narrative.
Wiinter Sunset, Anna Somerville
Around the gallery, there are also gloriously bright visions from dawn to dusk capturing the swiftly changing light as the sun slowly rises or quietly fades away.
Anna Somerville takes you on a journey to view tranquil scenes of mountains, meadows and lakes where you feel that you are there, in the open air, feeling the breeze with a scent of salty sea.
Teal Beach Scape, Anna Somerville
Elfyn Lewis grew up in Porthmadog, North Wales and now works in Cardiff, winning numerous awards including being named prestigious Welsh Artist of the Year 2010.
He likes to experiment and challenge his approach and technique. “Surfaces are layered with paint that overflows, dripping… until the upper layer explodes and transforms from a volcanic creation into a vivid landscape.”
Amdiffyn, Elfyn Lewis
Working with acrylic on board or canvas, these are certainly bold expressions of colour and light to portray a sense of place with fractured, fragmented structure: Amdiffyn, with its broad brush stroke streaks, is akin to viewing fabric fibres through a microscope.
This is such inventive crafted artwork, deconstructing the vision of a place down to its elements of materials and fluidity, such as Llangar with its swirling movement and shimmering light.
Llangar, Elfyn Lewis
There is a dazzling use of colour here, smoothed and pared down to present a surreal image. Arwain, for instance, is reminiscent of a glowing sunset above a dark indigo sea, yet viewed through a partially obscured frosty window.
Arwain, Elfyn Lewis
More realistic views too such as a diptych, Syrthio Mewn Cariad, which appears to be a craggy mountain as seen in the whiteout of winter and also in the green days of summer.
David Mankin lives in the far west corner of Cornwall where daily walks along the coast inspires his almost pure abstract land and seascapes. The natural world presents an ever-changing palette, tone and texture when expressing the sea-tide, clouds, sand, rocks, grass.
Sea-distant Afternoon, David Mankin
Sea-Distant Afternoon is such an evocative dreamlike image – you can imagine a warm summer day at the beach, the glare of the sun, sandcastles, the lapping of waves on the shore.
Several other cool and composed seascapes with soft subtle shades of azur, buttermilk and ochre. David is like a geologist in his manner of presenting the lines, space and shape of the coastal terrain. He describes his work as “ an energetic process of destruction and excavation, which mirrors the acts of nature on the landscape. I explore surface, colour, texture to form images which express my experiences in the Cornish landscape.”
Timeless Land, David Mankin
Like a patchwork quilt, Timeless Land reflects farm field, woodland and cloudy sky in geometric blocks, with a series of what could be tractor marks, animal tracks and foot prints, the remnants of life and nature. The purity of cool colour and precise shapes creates a serene scene where sea meets the land in Invisible Shores.
Invisible Shores, David Mankin
This is just a quick whizz around the current Viewpoints exhibition at The & Gallery – so do take a longer browse around all these coolly composed, luminous, languid landscapes. This artwork will brighten your day …and would bring a splash of colour and quiet reflection to your home.
Home is where the Art is.
Viewpoints is on show at The& Gallery until 15 April, 2020
See the exhibition on line at the Virtual Gallery
http://www.andgallery.co.uk/virtual-gallery/
http://www.andgallery.co.uk – artwork images
info@andgallery.co.uk
Syrthio Mewn Cariad, (Diptych), Elfyn Lewis
The Winter Exhibition at the &Gallery, Edinburgh – a dazzling, decorative showcase of fine arts and crafts
This is a truly inspirational selection of paintings, drawings, glass and ceramics by twenty six artists who have previously showcased their work here. The two adjoining rooms in this Georgian Townhouse, with its corniced, high ceiling, provide an elegant, spacious gallery.
This feature covers just a brief browse around this marvellous exhibition to highlight a few artists.
Anna Somerville graduated from ECA in 2000 winning the RSA Elizabeth Blackadder & John Houston Travel Award which took her on a trip to Oaxaca, Mexico. Her captivating land and seascapes were described as akin to ‘Turner at his most fluid and some of the more abstract American Expressionists’. Colin Gleadall, The Power of Paint.
Winter Sunset, Anna Somerville
Vibrant shades of purple, orange and turquoise create an almost textured tapestry effect in Neon Dusk. A less of an abstract approach in Winter Sunset, with the clarity of coral sky, wispy white clouds above, perhaps, snowy hills and an indigo blue sea: a real dramatic sense of being there, outside in the open air.
Based at his Sea Loft studio in Kinghorn on the seashore of the Firth of the Forth, Michael Craik is a master of intricately crafted minimalist paintings on aluminium and wooden panels. His methodical, repetitive technique is a gradual application of acrylic paint, layer by layer to create a shining, shimmering sheen with soft, translucent glow, as seen in this pink tinted Veil 2018 (3).
Veil, 2018 3, Michael Craik
Other work by Michael Craik is also on show at the City Art Centre in ‘Beneath the Surface’, featuring nine contemporary artists based in Scotland. (16 November, 2019 to 1 March, 2020).
Specialising across the disciplines of ceramics, sculpture and painting, Rebecca Appleby is an experimental artist following a theme to explore the contrast between modern structures and nature in our urban landscape.
Coplaner 3, Rebecca Appelby
There is extraordinary energy and movement in Coplanar 3 with its criss-crossing, architectural blocks and grids with sweeping swirls of grey, black and orange. Also on display are her white tactile round mound sculptures, Morphology Fragments.
Simply beautiful ceramics too by Lorraine Robson, from her Precious series, “slipcast diamond polished white fired earthenware – as she says, “I enjoy the meditative nature of allowing the form to evolve with handwork and imagination, using the most primitive and natural materials available: the earth itself.”
Precious series, – white fired earthenware Lorraine Robson
Her collection of delicate white bowls and vase shaped vessels, stand at a lopsided angle to decorative effect.
Jo Hummel’s intricate collage paintings are composed of asymmetric shapes, distorted diagonal lines, triangles, rectangles and wedges, as in Neverland and Night Owl. Tone and texture is based on a pared-down, distressed use of acrylic and flat matt with a bold colour and contour.
Night Owl, Jo Hummel
Jeffrey Cortland-Jones studied Fine Art in Cincinnati and now lives on a small farm in Southwestern Ohio. His medium is enamel on acrylic panel to create subtle shades of muted colour in simple geometric squares. Seawaves captures a soft blend of glossy grey and glistening green watery waves with Rothko-esque style.
Seawaves, Jeffrey Corland-Jones
Living and working on the Isle of Skye, Fiona Byrne-Sutton hand-crafts freestanding ceramic and crystocal plinth assemblages named The Angel’s Share. This is the term used for the small dram or two of whisky lost in evaporation in the cask barrel. The underlying narrative behind each piece is a clay sculptured interpretation of Italian Renaissance paintings and frescoes, such as Golden Gate (after Giotto).
Angel’s Share, Fiona Byrne-Sutton
Inspired by Franco Zeffirelli’s 1968 film, ‘Romeo and Juliet’ (played by 15 year old Olivia Hussey), Elaine Speirs created group of figurative paintings entitled “Beautiful Regrets,’ on the theme of womanhood. With free-flowing brushstrokes, Last Kiss expresses an intimate scene of youthful innocence, the emotional vulnerability of first love.
Last Kiss, Elaine Speirs
You might also wish to see Elaine Speirs’ painting ‘Young Girl’ which is part of this year’s BP Portrait Award exhibition, the most prestigious portrait competition in the world, now in its fortieth year. The BP Portrait Award 2019 is on show at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh from 7 December, 2019 to 22 March, 2020.
Take a visit to the &Gallery soon to view this dazzling, decorative display of art and crafts across every genre.
Winter Exhibition at the &Gallery,
30 November to 21 December, 2019
3 Dundas Street, Edinburgh EH3 6QG
The &Gallery, Winter Exhbition by a diverse collection of 26 Artists
Women Artists take over the galleries in Edinburgh this November
November in Edinburgh is clearly a time to celebrate the work of Scottish women artists past and present across several National and commercial galleries – the monstrous regiment of women is on the march.
At the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, “Modern Scottish Women: Painters and Sculptors 1885-1965” is a major exhibition of work to commemorate artists from the Victorian era to mid 20th century, when an unprecedented number of Scottish women were training and working as artists.
Anne Finlay by Dorothy Johnstone
Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museums Collection
Many women artists had relatively short careers or were successful during their lifetimes and have since been forgotten, while other less well known names did not receive full recognition for their talents. The exhibition begins in 1885, the year in which the Glasgow School of Art appointed as its Director Fra Newberry, who was remarkable for his encouragement of female staff and students. It ends in 1965 with the death of Anne Redpath, the leading painter of her generation. (7 November, 2015 – 26 June, 2016).
The Scottish Gallery on Dundas Street complements this major retrospective of work with their own selection of Four Women Artists – Elizabeth Blackadder, Victoria Crowe, Alison McGill and Emily Sutton – a diverse selection of still life, landscapes, flora & fauna, and delightful illustrative drawings of domestic scenes. (4 – 25 November 2015).
Lillies and Poppies – Elizabeth Blackadder
At Arusha Gallery, Dundas Street, you can see the debut exhibition in the UK by Danish artist, Inge Horup. She specialises in impressionistic figurative work featuring women – lipsticked mouths, wild hair, angular limbs – as if making a statement, standing out from the crowd. Powerful, satirical, fun. (8 – 27 November, 2015)
Model in blue landscape
Inge Horup
So it is also timely this month to showcase this stunning exhibition by Anna Somerville, a graduate of ECA, who won the prestigious Elizabeth Blackadder and John Houston Travel award in 2000.
This talented lady has an exceptional eye to re-imagine the reflection of light, soft shade, undulating lines and the shifting perspective of the landscape. With the wild, carefree approach in capturing cornfields and seashore as Joan Eardley, with a glimpse of the contemporary cubist style of the late Caroline McNairn, Anna Somerville has a refreshingly bold and vivid vision.
The painting on the left is entitled Imagine -the rich golden orange flare like a spectacular sunset. And below, with the fluidity of soft blue hues, is a fine art print, Waterfall.
These landscapes are not literal places, but a meditative sense of place depicting a dreamlike horizon, the expanse of open skies and the sea.
As Somerville explains: “When I paint, I am trying to find somewhere but I don’t know where, I am searching with the paint and brush marks”.
Take a tram, train, bus, walk or cycle over to the Whitespace Gallery on Howe Street, Edinburgh this week to see these electrifyingly colourful, abstract expressionist paintings which will brighten up Winter nights – and transform that blank wall in your home. The show ends on Thursday 12th November at 4pm, so do try and get there soon!.
Whitespace Gallery, 25 Howe Street, Edinburgh EH3 6TF http://www.annasomerville.com
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