Affordable Art Fair.

Been there, done that and most definitely got the tee shirt!
Cat Whitworth ( gallery staff and expert picture hanger ) and I, Sarah Wimperis ( artist, van driver and trying very hard to do as I am told) drove a van load of precious art works, carefully up to Bristol on the morning of Wednesday 11th.
The rest of the gallery staff had been working hard organising, cataloguing, wrapping and planning for months and were there to help us load the van but once we set off we were on our own.  We had a truck stop, like all good van drivers should, and managed to time our arrival in Bristol perfectly.
Then the hard work began.
We unloaded 90 paintings, tool boxes and one very heavy desk in just under one hour...

and began to hang.

Cat had a very well thought out hanging plan and by 4pm on the Thursday we were ready for the private view.  The pictures looked beautiful, colours flowed from one to the other, shapes were echoed and even horizon lines appeared to follow from one artists work right into the next.  I was impressed but then I shouldn't have been surprised as each exhibition at Beside the Wave is beautifully thought out.

The following three days were a blur of talking about the artists and the paintings.  Miles Heseltines' work sold very well and had at least two very emotional responses, which is a rare and fine thing.

Our fellow exhibitors were a very friendly and helpful crowd and we all had a thoroughly exuberant party on Saturday night.
Sunday was a rehang and then selling paintings. 
We met some old friends of the gallery and hopefully a lot of new ones and although it was an exhausting way to spend the weekend we both really enjoyed it.

Andrew Giddens - Colours of the Morning

 I met up with Andrew Giddens on the beach that is the inspiration for his third solo show at Beside The Wave.  His little boys climbed and played as he got out his sketch book to look into the light and make notes and sketches for another painting.

 He explained that it is the early morning that the new exhibition is about.  The birth of a new day, before there are footsteps in the sand, when the world is as it has been since it all began.  The sun, a blaze of glorious light.  Waves like luminous ribbons twisted from many colours.  This is what he paints and here is where he paints it.  It is a beach that he knows intimately and the arrangement of distant cliff and crag are as lovingly depicted as a family portrait.

He has become fascinated by the reflections in wet sand and thinks that as he works his paintings are becoming more abstract.  Indeed close up they appear as a woven tapestry of many layers of colour and yet when viewed from a few paces back they become perfect representations of light and water.  The clean promise of a new day shines from these canvases. 
As we finished talking his little boys leap from their rocky climbing and run off across the beach, which reminds me of how fresh and lovely it is to see the pure childlike joy that is in all of Andrew's work and what a rare and precious thing that is.
Go and see for yourself, breathe in the fresh, ozone rich, air of a new day and enjoy the work of Andrew Giddens.
The exhibition opens on Friday 13th with a private view at 6pm and continues until Wednesday 25th of May.

Two Artists

Two of our artists appear in the 300th edition, June 2011, of the Artists and Illustrators magazine.  Andrew Tozer work in progress for his exhibition in June and Richard Tuff talks about why he enjoys working in gouache.

Bristol Here We Come!

 We are loading up the van with beautiful paintings on Wednesday and hitting the road to travel up to Bristol for the Affordable Art Fair where we will be showing ten of our artists:
Andrew Giddens, Miles Heseltine, Mike Hindle, Alasdair Lindsay, John Raynes, Simon Stooks, Richard Stanley, Andrew Tozer Richard Tuff and Sarah Wimperis.
The private view is 6pm - 9pm on Thursday 12th May, invitation only, and the art fair is open Friday 11 am - 8 pm, Saturday 11am - 6 pm and Sunday 11 am - 5 pm.

If you are in the Bristol area we would love to see you, gallery staff will be Cat Whitworth and Sarah Wimperis, we are on stand E11.

You may have noticed a new name amongst our artists, Richard Stanley.  His colourful expressive paintings of Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly are an exciting addition to the gallery.