To The Coast

Our annual ‘Coast Show’ starts our 2015 show programme this year as ‘To The Coast’, showcasing a group of five handpicked artists and the range of inspiration to be found in the Cornish shoreline.

For painter Alex Morton, it is his passion for surfing that influences his work the most, inspired by ‘the surf, sea and wind’. Morton’s work captures the rugged Cornish landscape, the expanse of sea and the energy it brings through the wind and the waves with tonal colour and strong textures on paper, board and canvas. Unexpectedly finding painting in 2012, Morton discovered an immediate talent and new passion to paint and create and to communicate through his work. This show will mark the second exhibition of Morton’s work at the gallery after a highly successful debut collection in the gallery’s ‘New Horizons’ show, October 2014.

Also newly added to the gallery’s stable of artists is the established painter Joanne Last. Last’s atmospheric seascapes mix memory and imagination, aiming to create mood and atmosphere rather than simply to record the view. Her work focuses more on the experience of being in a place, rarely planning or sketching but launching straight into an idea. Her paintings direct themselves depending on the time of day, light, weather and surge of water, resulting in expressive and intuitive works that evoke breaking waves and the colours of dusk.

Similarly, in Martyn Perryman’s eye there is no such thing as bad weather, enjoying ‘the calmness of a summer’s day, as much as the invigorations of a stormy winter walk’. He takes inspiration from regular walks along the coastal paths and beaches of St Ives, returning to the same viewpoint to make sketches and colour studies to use back in his studio. In his paintings he intends to create ‘the calmness and clarity of mind that can be achieved when looking out to a horizon; free from the pressure and visual clutter of urban life.’

One of the two ceramicists within the group is Newlyn born-and-bred Essex Tyler, a former deep-sea fisherman, whose life and practice are both very much entwined within the coastal setting of his exhibition. Now based in Mousehole, his work reflects the nature and natural environment around him, full of texture and balance. Cool glazes poured onto a rich and textured body, turquoise blues, green and ochures settle each vessel with tranquility.

Colour is also an important quality in the work of ceramicist Sarah Perry. Her stoneware and porcelain pots are decorated with glazes of intense blues, turquoise, purples, pinks and greens, all easy to associate with the array of changing and varied light here in St Ives. Perry trained at Camberwell Art School where her teachers were Lucie Rie and Hans Coper and has gone on to exhibit her work across the world.

The work of all five artists will be available to view in the gallery as part of the exhibition ‘To The Coast’ from Saturday 7^th February until Saturday 7^th March 2015.

Lasting Impressions

We are pleased to present one of our first exhibitions for 2015, ‘Lasting Impressions: Andrew Bird and Barry Stedman’, bringing together the expressive and instinctive works of painter Andrew Bird and ceramicist Barry Stedman. Both artists are informed and influenced by their surroundings, using exciting relationships between colour, texture and form to evoke the essence of an experience or a place – focusing, for this exhibition, on the landscape of Cornwall. 

Talking about his process, Andrew Bird states ‘the images are invariably made using sketched ideas and references from memory or the work is developed instinctively. I am interested in the relationships made using colour and contrasts as well as the interplay of forms and gestural mark-making.  Elements within a painting are based on fleeting images, imagination and experiences, which perhaps aren't visually representative. If compared to a snapshot, but for me, encapsulate a particular slice of time. ‘

Bird is based in Derbyshire but spends a great amount of time in Cornwall, taking inspiration from ‘the hustle and bustle of harbours and coastal life’ and the rugged landscape that is found both here in Cornwall and in Derbyshire.

Despite being a ceramicist, Barry Stedman’s work also begins by painting - spending time drawing and painting outdoors to inform his ideas with the influence of shapes, light and atmosphere. His initial watercolour or gouache paintings, inspired by light and patterns, are often reworked into larger, more abstract, oil paintings that then lead into his final ceramics. Working with simple vessel forms in red earthenware clay, Stedman uses coloured slips, stains and oxides to create a finish which, as described by art critic David Whiting, evokes ‘the colours and textures of weather, sky and land in-the-round’.

Born in 1965 in Watford, Stedman returned to education as a mature student gaining a first class honours in Ceramics from the University of Westminster in 2009. Since graduating, he has worked as a part-time assistant at the studio of Edmund deWaal, one of the world’s leading ceramic artists.

The show, ‘Lasting Impressions: Andrew Bird and Barry Stedman’ will mark the second time both Andrew Bird and Barry Stedman’s work will be shown at the Porthminster Gallery, St Ives after highly successful first exhibitions in 2014. The highly anticipated new collections will be on display at the gallery from Saturday 7^th February until Saturday 7^th March 2015.