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Playing the Market

Painting Markets

I love markets. I love outdoor markets and indoor markets alike. A busy market is fun to visit as a shopper, but even better for an artist. To be honest I often just look at the people and stalls and don’t buy a lot. It provides inspiration. There are lots of things to look at, the light, in particular, is what attracts me, whether it’s indoors or outside, there is always lots of natural light at a market. I also like the distracted people, and also the bright colours of the stalls and the people shopping or sitting outside at cafes (both in summer and winter).

Swansea has a cracking indoor market that was rebuilt after the original market was blitzed during the Second World War. It has a wonderful barrel-shaped roof. The light is a combination of natural light and artificial light. The light in the painting below is natural sunshine that was streaming in from the roof.

Painting of Swansea market
Knick Knack Attack (Swansea Indoor Market)

Outdoor markets are more variable, the rain can make them rather sad places to be in but in the sunshine, they are great fun. The Uplands, in Swansea, has a monthly market.

Painting of People at Uplands Market
Uplands Outdoor Market
Painting of Swansea woman
On a Mission
Painting of Welsh women
Double Trouble (Uplands Market)

I particularly like the dogs that come along too. They are usually on leads but also sitting with their owners at outdoors cafes at and near the markets. The strong winter shadows make for a dramatic composition.

Painting of Dog
Well Deserved Treat (Uplands)

I also like the little “unobserved” vignettes, such as these children playing with a typewriter. I like to imagine the conversation this smart-phone generation might be having about this relic from the last century.

Painting of Children with typewriter
What does it do? (Uplands Market)

There is a Victorian indoor Market in Cardiff too. It reminds me of a railway station, with its steel fixtures, supports, and arches, the huge glass, skylit, two-tone ceiling. They have a record shop upstairs and several cafes.

Painting of Cardiff Market
Overlooking Cardiff Market
Cardiff painting
“Weighing it Up” (Cardiff Indoor Market)

There is a fish stall by one of the two entrances, it gets natural light from the left side. This stall is particularly expansive, the fish and crabs are displayed in a generous display shelf. There is plenty to choose from. Again, it was the light that drew me to this composition. Although we cannot see the customer’s face, only his back, I am speculating on the conversation he is having with the fishmonger. I love that word “monger”. Its a wonderfully old-fashioned word (probably Anglo-Saxon) for someone who deals in a particular trade, there are others like an ironmonger, cheesemonger and more unsavory ones like fleshmonger, scaremonger and warmonger.

My parents live near Stroud, in the Cotswolds and I sometimes visit markets, there’s an indoor market most days of the week as well as an outdoor farmers market on Saturdays. I visited the market last Saturday.

Market at Stroud
Farmers’ Market, Stroud, England

Again, its the dogs that catch my eyes. There are lots in Stroud of different shapes and sizes. You can tell a lot about an area by its dogs. Fashions come and go in towns and cities like Swansea. Huskies used to be all the rage, then smaller dogs like French Bulldogs became popular, more recently cockerpoos are everywhere. When I visit Cirencester I see lots of dachshunds, in Stroud, there’s more a mix from larger lurchers, Jack Russells (my favorite dog), and very cute Chihuahua-mixes with Jack Russells. In Ireland, the towns also favor smaller dogs but in rural Donegal, it’s larger collies and black Labradors that are very popular. So as we drove the length of Ireland, I noticed that little Mitzie (our Dashund/Jack Russell cross) got admiring looks in Wexford but it was Biddy (our Collie cross) who was more popular in Donegal.

Painting of Terrier
Stroud Terrier
Painting of sausage dog
Just a Second

Again, it’s the “unobserved” that I am interested in. A dog on its own isn’t as interesting as one with its owners unless it’s looking “out of shot” at its owner. In “Just a Second” the dachshund is obviously hoping its owner is going to produce a treat from her bag. I doubt it somehow.

Two women and their dog painting
Table for Three SOLD

In “Table for three”, my most recent painting, the little pooch looks very much loved by its family, after all, as she has the best seat. I would not be surprised if she has been fed a biscuit or two or a slice of cake. Look,  there is a knife, and a stack of plates under the coffee cup on the left, evidence of food eaten.  There is a clearly comfortable vibe between the two women, whom I am guessing have been in a relationship for a long time. There are no smartphones to interrupt their revery in the sunshine. The woman on the left has difficulty walking as she has a walking stick in her hand. I love the rich red color of her hair, catching the sunshine. That color says to me I am still young at heart. It chimes with the red stripes of her partner’s top. This painting has caught a moment. It may an illusion. For all I know, they could be having a row, but I really don’t think so. I enjoy looking at the details in the picture and speculating and writing a story about them.

If you want to see more of my people and or animal paintings please click here.

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The Sight, Smells and Sound of Art

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Abertawe 2021 Bloc (Outside Swansea Train station)

Back to Cardiff again to see some more art and collect my paintings from the madeinroath festival.

The madeinroath 2017 festival has Art has installations/happenings across almost 80 different locations across the suburb of Roath, Cardiff.  The wonderful thing is that it’s all free to visit. The weather was grey with a cold biting wind. The day before Storm Brian had lashed the streets with rain and all the outdoor events had been cancelled. Seamas and I meandered down the streets of Roath to the “Old Laundry” which was in a ramshackle  courtyard tucked away at the end of of a dead end street.

The first installation was that of Tanya Dower called “Thrill Seeking, Dirty”. The photo only captures a tenth was it was like. The installation filled two small rooms. The air of neglect was palpable. Firstly there was this thumbing, squealing, soundscape which reminded me of  a playful crazy version of BBC Radiophonic Workshop  noise.  There were a series of black and white photos of an industrial landscape and fragments of charred rubbish laid out on the floor but most importantly was the stink. Oh the smell. It repelled some people at the door. I initially thought it was incense being burnt to cover the smell of damp. Tanya and the festival volunteer with her spoke to us enthusiastically about the installation. It turned out that Tanya had “designed” this smell to comprise wood smoke, coal and urine. The whole installation had been inspired by her youth spent playing in the ruins of abandoned pithead building in Merthyr Tydfil.

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Me trying to work out what the smell is!

Upstairs there were several rooms with exhibitions/installations. Seamas found Lynette Margerison’s huge charcoal drawings  very moving.

I was fascinated by Ian Watson’s sound installation  “A Complex and Increasingly Important Announcement from an Extremely Limited Vocabulary”. The row of mini  solar panels drew their energy from the sun (what there was of it that afternoon) and produced a layers of clicks, drones and tones that oscillated and wavered. Ian generous spent time explaining to me and Seamas me how the solar panels generated the sound and how he adjusted the layers of noise.

 

We spent the rest of the afternoon at the Inkspot Centre.

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Flags and my exhibition upstairs in the Inkspot

I finally found out the names of the third year ceramics students we had chatted to last Sunday evening (Morgan Dowdell, Lucy Fielden, Marek Liska and Magda Strydon). They had also added to their work on display in the hall.  Just to warn you that Morgan’s work (at the bottom of these photos) (which is excellent) is also very explicit so look away now if you are of a sensitive nature!

 

I really enjoyed being part of this arts festival and I wish I could have seen more of the art across Roath.  I think you would have to stay in Cardiff for the whole week to explore and to get a good sense of the breadth of what was going on here. There’s always next year!

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Cardiff Festival launch

Cardiff is a city that embraces change and it embraces art. Everywhere you go massive murals are tucked into corners, whether in the city centre or in the terraces of Roath. It gives the city a great feeling of vibrancy.

Not all of the street art was official. Back lanes off City Road were also full of graffiti, which was apparently “tolerated” by the local police (according to a rather shy and sweet graffiti artist who was in the midst of creating a wonderful 6 foot blue skull).

Cutting through a tiny urban park and play area we come across the Plasnewydd Community Garden, which is located on poetic-sounding Shakespeare Street. As you can see from the photos, the sun was out. Which was particularly pleasant as we are in the misdt of a lot of grey and damp autumnal weather in Wales at the moment. There we paused to look in on Tessa Waite and her “Tea Encounter”. We had not arranged for an actual “encounter” but we visited her gazebo. The atmosphere inside was wonderfully calm. Tessa, from Brecon, is a Budhist and she radiated a lot of calm herself. We stood for quite a while listening to the sounds of the breeze and the shouts of the children playing outside.

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Then we finally made it to Inkspot Centre for the official opening. There had been a children’s parade through Roath with a whole lot of colourful flags designed by local schools and community groups. This flags had been printed by James Cook who was valiantly hanging them across the hall, with children thundering around at the foot of his stepladder! A massive indoor picnic was taking place with music and singing (and a harpist).  We spent a good hour or so downstairs chatting with the friendly ceramic students who demonstrating their clay working techniques.

The festival ends this Sunday and its well worth a visit.

 

 

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Exhibition Catalogue

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I am offering a free PDF to download of my exhibition catalogue when you join my mailing list. The form pops up when you are on this blog page .

 

 

 

 

 

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Towards Radisson Blu

“Towards Radisson Blu”

This is the first of a series of urbanscapes in which I paint cities other than my home city of Swansea. Here we start with a city close to me, Cardiff. There will be urban cityscapes to follow of London and New York, among others. This is a painting of Bute Terrace in Cardiff with two imposing hotels, including Radisson Blu, in the distance.
I love how the mingling glare of white car headlights and the blaring red of brake lights evokes a sense of busy movement and traffic jams. One of the most common signature sights of the city.

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Still Undecided?

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Latest in the “Pies” series “Still Undecided?”

“This is the third in the “Pies series” after “Before the Rush” and “That Moment of Indecision” which have both sold on Artfinder.

Here our everyman protagonist is joined by the fleeting, shooting looks of a passer-by, also briefly considering whether to to step into the warmth of the “Pies” shop on St Mary’s Street, Cardiff.
At least the passer-by’s brisk walk, and disgusted frown at even having entertained the notion of pies, suggest the exquisite relish and torturous desire will be shorter lived than the gentleman by the window, who has moved his longing gaze from the advertising board to the orange-inviting heat of indoors.”

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That Moment of Indecision

A new oil painting, “That Moment of Indecision”

This is an oil painting capturing that should I/shouldn’t I? moment of indecision.
The decision here is whether to have a delicious pie from this excellent PIES shop or to walk on virtuously having not added any more to one’s waistline!
A decision made all the more difficult by the fact it was a chilly crisp winter’s day and the PIES sign was so warm and alluring, almost visually replicating the heat of the freshly warmed pies inside.
The painting’s setting is the exterior of the same PIES shop on St Mary Street in Cardiff which had it’s interior painted in the painting “Before the Rush” which sold a few months back –https://www.artfinder.com/product/before-the-rush-b42b/

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That moment of indecision (SOLD)
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Weighing it Up

A new oil painting – “Weighing it Up” – down Cardiff market. This Hopperesque painting is of the fish market at the Hayes entrance to Cardiff Market. I have always loved the glaring artificial light above this fish stall. It creates some lovely colours and a pleasing depth of field. The fishmonger weighs his goods while the customer deliberates on what to have next, hence the tile “Weighing it Up”

Weighing it Up