Olympic Torch Relay

Saturday was a day full of sunshine and high spirits enjoyed by everyone in Falmouth.  The Olympic Torch continued on its journey through the centre of town, and right past the gallery.  

Not only did we have Bucks Fizz and little cakes and nibbles to celebrate this wonderful occasion but we were very privileged to be able to show five very special watercolour paintings by guest artist Emma Cousin.  These paintings were part of a collection that had been commissioned and painted inside the Olympic Aqua Dome.  A very close link for our gallery to the Olympics.

  Everybody enjoyed watching the huge turn-out for the event.  The streets were lined, people were leaning precariously out of windows above the shops to get a better view, and there was an incredible atmosphere and buzz all through the town.

We managed to get some photographs of the mornings events, it certainly was a day to remember, and what a welcome to Amanda Hoskin's exhibition that had opened the night before!

And last, but by no means least, Gavin Cattle, running with the Olympic Torch for all to see...

Amanda Hoskin : Homecoming

Last week I enjoyed a conversation with Amanda Hoskin, she was sitting on the gallery floor surrounded by the results of several months of hard labour.  Paintings everywhere, sprouting, greens, blues and soft pinks, like the Cornish hedgerows in springtime, a breath of fresh air.   

Flowers in May, Falmouth  

As she merrily penned the titles on the backs she explained what this new series of work is all about.  Growing up in Falmouth, Amanda spent her childhood on the shores and waters of Carrick  roads, learning to sail in Mylor.

Morning Walk along the River, staying onboard the Boat at Mylor

These paintings have a quiet reflective quality, almost as if time has softened their edges.  The sea melts into the sky, cliffs and distant landscapes are coaxed into existence by a gentle touch and the foregrounds are softened by splatter and froth of cow parsley and summer grasses. 

Summer Evening, St. Mawes

 The titles are tiny stories in themselves, the day that was cold but the dog went swimming, a walk in the morning after staying on board the boat, special views, private moments, little daydreams.  

A Winters Day, but the Dog is Happy to Swim

A beautiful collection that is a privelage to be able to share.  The preview is in the gallery tonight, Amanda will be there and I think she will be bringing her sketchbooks, works of art in their own right.  The whole collection is now online and available to purchase.

Bristol Here We Come

We are all set for Bristol, new paintings just dry, done especially for Bristol wrapped and packed, recent work chosen and sorted, labels made, the gallery upstairs looks...well, busy!
 It will be back to its normal tidy state tomorrow, when all the paintings are happily and safely on the way to the Affordable Art Fair. Its not too late to download a half price ticket from our web site, hopefully we will see you there.
If you cant make it in person then at least you can enjoy what we are taking by flipping through the flipping catalogue above. There are some brand new, never seen before paintings in there.

Benjamin Warner

Andrew Giddens Exhibition

Andrew Giddens, One Step Closer

Andrew Giddens has been out in all weathers, capturing the essence of the sea in winter. 

Gathering the flotsam and jetsam, the foam and spume by the armful, condensing them, mixing them together with lashings of memories of a childhood spent on the Lizard and adding the deep pigment that is his own spirituality, he appears to have made special paint and bottled it!

This essence of place, this perfume of salt and iodine, memories and joy is then transported back to his studio and appears on a glorious amount of canvas. 

And now the sea is crashing into the gallery.  It is not so much Beside the Wave as inside the Wave.

Not wanting to rest easy by painting what he knows is successful he has moved to a different view, exploring the beaches and coves of the Lizard, digging deep for personal memories and emotions while pushing himself as a painter, to try new things and  to perfect his technique. 

As a brand new father of a beautiful baby girl, a little sister to three lovely boys, Andrew has his hands full.  Adopting a very happy self discipline,  he gets up early and works in the mornings, leaving the afternoons for his family. 

He says that painting is his time out, a place in the day where he can meditate on the world around him and celebrate a life filled with the simple glories of a crashing wave, the cry of gulls, the chatter of children and now the sound of a newborn.

Join us in the gallery for a private view tonight from 6pm.  Then every day until May 9th.

Catalogue for Chelsea Art Fair

We will be at Chelsea Art Fair, Chelsea Old Town Hall, Kings Road, London SW3 5EE.  On Stand 35.  Friday 20th April - Sunday 22nd April.  There is a Preview on Thursday 19th April, 4pm - 9pm (invitation only).
If you would like tickets please contact the gallery.  We would love to see you there.  If you click on the catalogue above you can see the work that we will be taking with us.  There is new work especially for Chelsea from Anne-Marie Butlin, Amanda Hoskin, Richard Tuff and Sarah Wimperis.  Previously unseen work from Chris Rigby.  Lovely pieces from the Effortless Brushstrokes exhibition and a selection of very exciting sculpture.
This fair we will be taking a browser containing mounted but unframed original paintings, drawings and etchings by Miles Heseltine, John Howard, Chris Rigby and Sarah Wimperis, which is an opportunity to get your self some georgous art at a lower price.
All of the work is available with the own art scheme, smashing the price into ten, interest free, monthly repayments, so you could have a painting for as little as £10 per month!
If you see anything that you fall in love with it is available to buy now, from the gallery.
Enjoy the catalogue and hopefully we will see you in London, if nothing else it is an excellent chance to see some of our best work in the "flesh" and have a chat with Ingrid Heseltine and Sarah Wimperis who will be staffing our stand.

Spring Time!

by Imogen Bone

Spring has sprung, the sun is shining and the clocks have sprung forward.  The children are released from school  and the leaves are coming out.  It is a hopeful and bright time of year and our Spring mixed exhibition this year has a theme of "Colour and Shape"
It is full to bursting with wonderful colours, here is a stunning painting by Imogen Bone, literally colour and shape, I love it, so bright and glorious orange against the blue.  Simon Stooks has been taking things literally as well, colours and shapes burst forth from his paintings with Stooksien vitality within the mark making.  Richard Thorn has painted some beautiful, truly beautiful, tree shapes with the essence of spring colour mixed into the sky. He has also poured colour onto a canvas and magicked up a "Mystic Pool" which positively glows with light.

by Richard Thorn

Emma Dunbar is characteristically floral, exuberant bunches of spring flowers blooming out of lovely jugs and mugs and patterning the Dunbar world.  It opens tomorrow and at any moment now the whole collection should be on line.  It is a happy show and well worth visiting, don't worry about petrol or the price of pasties, visit the gallery and let your heart fill up with spring hopefulness.

Precious Things

Polzeath Bathers

Did you know that there is a physical reaction when you look at art that you like.  It feels a bit like butterflies, or that feeling when you almost trip downstairs, not totally pleasant, its a rush of adrenalin,  Apparently, according to the science programme on Radio 4 yesterday, it is measurable!  Your pulse quickens and your palms sweat!
Expect a lot of sweaty palms tonight, these paintings are exciting and masterful.  There is a breathless ease with which Andrew Tozer manages to choose such sublime colours, those blues in a sparkling sea, one can imagine that they come out of the tube complete with the cry of gulls and the shouts of children playing.

Summer, Polzeth

The same thing happens with "Summer Polzeth" Effortless brushstrokes become dozens of figures, a sweep of colour is easily a windbreak.  It looks so easy and is actually so difficult.  What hours of work allow someone to catch a shadow, to convey a fleeting moment with such unerring confidence?

Durgan Light, July.

The colours in this body of work are surprisingly bright, like the acid green in Durgan Light, or the joyful grass in Birthday Party,

Birthday Party

but they sit beautifully within the context of each painting.  It is like a glorious summer day, playing on the beach then home for bedtime.   Because after all the excitement of the sea, boats in the bay, clouds scudding across a blue evening sky, a shiny birthday party, we are taken home, where the breeze softly blows the curtains and a little girl plays with precious things

Precious Things

and later, just before bedtime, there is a little time for drawing.

Drawings for Freddie.

This is a wonderful exhibition by an artist who paints with his heart on his pallet.
Opening tonight 16th March and continuing until 28th March.

Distant Perspectives

Benjamin Warner's new exhibition is the second in the Effortless Brustrokes collection of shows. 
He has produced a wonderful collection of epic paintings.  Cornwall appears as if shrouded in a timeless mist, one that blurs the present day with vistas from another age.   Truro cathedral rises out of the landscape and seems to be in a time before it was even built.

 

Familiar places are seen with fresh eyes and a different soul has evolved from beneath the artists brush. Turf, heather and winter grass are conjured up out of pigment and oil. The smallest of brushstrokes becomes a house or a path across the moor.  There is a great mastery of medium apparent in this body of work.

Benjamin Warner allows us a view of Cornwall that is both new and yet as old as the Cheesewring its self.  
The exhibition is well worth a visit and will be on show at the gallery from Friday 24th until Wednesday March 7th.

Effortless Brushstrokes

Alachai Mor V
1025 x 1220 mm
by Chris Rigby

Opening tonight, a very exciting mixed exhibition of truly awe inspiring paintings.  This is the launch of our second year of collaboration with Falmouth Art Gallery.  Fourteen of our artists are represented in this show with one major piece each being exhibited at Falmouth Art Gallery in an exhibition inspired by John Singer Sargent, whose maxim was "to convey the maximum with the minimum of effort."  In other words a display of breathtaking skill, apparently effortless, unquestionably stunning.
The show runs until April 14th and is surely not to be missed.
Here is a little taster...

Tresco Trees
365 x 605mm
by Neil Pinkett

Woodland II (May)
1000 x 1000mm
by Miles Heseltine

Lead The Way and Dance
605 x 505mm
by Paul Wadsworth

Garden Pots
215 x 215
by Sarah Wimperis

Still Lifes

Simon Stooks
1930s Boat with Cornish Cup

Still Lifes, quiet places and silent moments.  It is January, misty and grey outside.  Take the time to pause for a while and look around an imaginary room.

Emma Jeffreys
Still Life with Pink Bag

A vase of flowers sit beside a cup, a bowl and a glass, before them are scattered four shells and a fallen bloom and beneath a glorious splash of pink in the form of a plastic bag.  Look again and a blue and white jug is echoed by a blue paint pot.

Simon Stooks
Paint Pot and Cornish Cream Jug

Three elegant and superbly simple pots sit on a white shelf,

Paul Lewin
Three Alice Gaskell Pots

Light is reflected in rosy hews from apples placed in unconscious arrangement upon a china plate.

Robert Jones
Three Apples

In the corner of this imaginary room is the stillest life of all, a television set, closed to the bustle and shriek of the world outside, reflecting back, as if through a glass darkly, your still life.

Ashley Hold
Off

Petals fall and rest on patterned cloth, shadows move imperceptibly and a small harvest ripens on a windowsill.

Philip Hogben
Farmyard and Flowers

Beside the Wave is celebrating the still life genre of painting with a beautifully fresh exhibition of work from some of our artists.  Paul Lewin has come inside, away from the cliff edge to paint calm and elegant works with a limited and very beautiful pallet.

Paul Lewin
Interior, After Gwen John.

Anne -Marie Butlin is celebrating exotic pattern and rich colours with her paintings of flowers and everyday objects that burst with a powerful femininity.

Anne-Marie Butlin
Blue Shoes

Simon Stooks and Emma Jeffryes present us with beautifully composed paintings that have a deceptively simple altered perspective.  Robert Jones and Philip Hogben give us domestic still life and steep their subjects in the rich painterly tradition of this genre.  Ashley Hold has painted interiors, desperately empty, still and peaceful yet brimming with unspoken comment.

Ashley Hold
Ocean

Still Lifes opens on Friday 27th January, with the Private View, 6-8pm and continues until Wednesday 8th February.

A Brand New Year

Richard Thorn
Headland Waves
600mm x 800mm, watercolour on paper

We closed the gallery on Wednesday 11th of January and had a very dynamic and productive Strategy Day with everybody involved in the running of the gallery.  We have plans and aims and wishes and desires.  One of the first results of the day is that we have secured a stand at the prestigious Watercolours and Works on Paper Fair which is held at The Science Museum, London  on February 2nd-5th.  It is an exciting fair with all sorts of wonderful work exhibited.  We shall be taking several of our artists, an list will follow soon,  and with just over two weeks to get our Art Fair team into shape it is a good job they are so keen!   Almost concurrently is our first exhibition of the year "Still Lifes"  That is a very beautiful collection of work by some of our artists which will surprise and delight...but that's another blog post.
Visit us at the fair if you are in London, we will be on stand B30.

What A Year

It's Christmas Eve in the Gallery, outside the sun is shining, a little sea mist is lifting and the boats shift gently on a calm sea. The Docks Choir has just begun the traditional singing of Cornish carols in front of the church.  So it is time to look back on the year and to look forward to the next year.

What a year it has been.  This year we joined forces with Falmouth Art Gallery to complement their exhibition, British Impressionists, with a series of exhibitions of Contemporary Impressionism.  From June to September the gallery was bustling with new shows every two weeks.

We held a very successful exhibition of Watercolours, showcasing this often overlooked and very challenging medium.

We also ventured forth to horizons beyond the Tamar, showing our artists at Bristol and London Affordable Art Fairs and Edinburgh Art Fair.  We throughly enjoyed the very hard work, meeting new collectors, making new friends, selling lots of beautiful paintings and collecting a new artist or two on the way.

To look forward to the New Year, we are continuing the connection with Falmouth Art Gallery with what will be a wonderful exhibition called "Effortless Brushstrokes", which on first glance is a contradiction in terms but as Picasso said "There are painters who transform the sun into a yellow spot, but there are others who, thanks to their art and intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun" and that, in a Picasso style nutshell, is what it is all about.

We have a very exciting mixed exhibition at the end of January, "Still Lifes" is a stunning collection of quietly beautiful paintings, a contemporary take on the very rich tradition of still life painting, perfect for the start of the year.
We have taken on some new artists, which I am very excited about and, should you decide to follow this very informative blog, (see the top right corner) I shall be introducing some more studio visit blog posts throughout the year.
Do sign up to get the blog delivered straight to your email and keep in touch with everything that is going on in the gallery and behind the scenes at Beside the Wave.
So all that remains is to wish you the most happy Christmas and a jolly fine New Year from us all at Beside the Wave.