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The Abbot’s Gate

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This painting is of the Abbot’s gate which leads via various steps, up a steep incline to the side of Caldey Monastery on Caldey Island, off Tenby, West Wales. The steps lead to the Abbot’s Chapel which is a wonderful wooden-paneled chapel, used seldomly and usually on special religious occasions or when the electricity fails in the main Chapel! This painting evokes long summer days spent languidly walking around the wonderful Holy Island of Caldey – the long shadows cast by the trees seek to evoke this stretched languidness and summered relaxation.

Visitors to Caldey will be used to walking past this gate, forlornly perhaps as they hurry to catch the last boat back to Tenby. The long shadows also hope to express the time dwindling as the sun begins it’s descent to the West and over the sea’s horizon, pulling the last light of the day with it. I use purply blues to evoke this sense of leaving somewhere special, affirming, spiritual even, as purple expresses both the hues of the sun-setting and the spirituality of this monastery and holy island; both leaving a lingering impression.

Wonderful Caldey is also set apart by its trees which is very unusual if not unprecedented among the Welsh islands. Thus this painting has two great Caldey signatures, the gate and incline to spiritual nourishment and the joy of time spent on this unique treed island.

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Up Cwmdonkin

Another ‘refractionist’ painting. The title takes it’s name from the actual park, Cwmdonkin Park, which is where the poet and composer of words Dylan Thomas walked an displayed as a child and adolescent, maybe imagined and constructed as a young man, and dreamed big dreams. His family home hugged the side of the park, on the steep of the hill running alongside the park. Perhaps he extended his journey to the Uplands Tavern this way or then again, perhaps not!Image

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Winter Lane

The mix of the vibrant lime green and the greys with the light wispish grey of the sky are meant to provide a frission between more so-called rich vibrant alive colours and those usually associated with being drab, boring, muncipal; to express that heightened feeling of energy and aliveness that one often feels after the rain has gone, when the atmosphere is charged with negative ions, and the grass seems to be luscious and excited. After the beating drabness of the rain, the suffocation of possibility comes the energy, the possibilities, the promise…everything refreshed and ready to move. A friend tells me is is menacing, or broody at least, pregnant with threat (perhaps of more rain), these are some possibilities of how to look at it .Image

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Winter Lane

The mix of the vibrant lime green and the greys with the light wispish grey of the sky are meant to provide a frission between more so-called  rich vibrant alive colours and those usually associated with being drab, boring, muncipal, to express that heightened feeling of energy and aliveness that one often feels after the rain has gone, when the atmosphere is charged with negative ions, and the grass seems to be luscious and  excited. After the beating drabness of the rain, the suffocation of possibility comes the energy, the possibilities, the promise…everything refreshed and ready to move.  A friend tells me it

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is menacing, or broody at least, pregnant with threat (perhaps of more rain) these are some possibilities of how to  look at it.

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Art Exhibition July 2013

I will be exhibiting for 2-3 weeks in Noah’s Yard, Uplands, Swansea starting on the 23rd July 2013 – this is the opening night and you are all invited to the opening do! Noah has kindly given me his main brick wall to play with so I will be exhibiting at least 12 pieces of artwork for a few weeks. It would be lovely to see you there particularly on the opening night on the 23rd JulyImage