We visited the #Troublemakers’ Festival at High Street Swansea yesterday afternoon. The unrelenting drizzle did not damped the smiles and the good humour of the volunteers.  Indoors at Volcano there was plenty of protest-poster making, poetry, song and cake. Upstairs at the Elysium Galleries local artists gave tours of their work places. We marvelled at the order of Eifion Sven-Mayer’s space (as well as his talent as an artist) and he was very generous with his time, as was Tansy Rees and Konstantinos Grigoriades. There are many, many very talented people in Swansea.
Sunday, it was a lot drier, thankfully. I spent the morning volunteering at the “Unfair Funfair” – a Swansea Oxfam initiative to highlight the benefits of Fair Trade. I loved the way how the children pitched right in and played, despite the fact that they realised quite soon on that all the games were fixed and they could not “win” any of them!!! Happily there were no complaints and some chocolate and stickers distributed. I enjoyed the festival as a visitor yesterday, but it was much more fun as a volunteer, as I got to interact with so many more people; the toddlers who keen to try to knock over the cans on “Tin Can’t Alley”, the teenagers who had come to use the skate board ramps and the adults, some passing on their way to train station, others who had come for the art and theatre. Â Mark Stephenson’s #Tag my ride was another popular attraction. Looking forward to #TroubleMakers’ 2018!
I have just completed a painting “Summer Rain” which is an oil painting of the same view as in the paintings, “Outside Brynmill Coffee House”, “Night Walks” and “The Dusk Walk Home”, the later two which both sold via Artfinder. All are below.
“Night Walks was inspired by Hopper’s “Night Hawks” and “The Dusk Walk Home” was a commissioned re-interpretation of “Night Hawks”. Unlike these two latter evening-time oil paintings this is new painting “Summer Rain” is earlier in the evening as dusk descends and is in the summer rain. I have posted these in accordance with the progression of the day, from bright day to darker night.
Outside Brynmill Coffee House
Outside Brynmill Coffee HouseSummer Rain
Summer Rain
The Brynmill Coffee House is in Brynmill, Swansea and is a superior coffee house that allows artists to exhibit their work. It has live music too.
I will be exhibiting in the month of August and my husband James Henry Johnston is exhibiting in September.
It is great to have a local business which supports the arts. I salute them in these paintings.
Delighted to have Sold this classic “urban folk” painting “Night Jacks” to a collector in Utah in the US via Artfinder !
“The title of this expressionist “urban folk” painting takes it’s title from Hopper’s “Night Hawks” – I have “Britishized” Hopper’s painting which was set in an American diner by using a British alternative or even equivalent the ever present Fish and Chip shop instead as it seemed appropriate. The second part of the title, Jacks, refers to a name we have here in Swansea for people who come from Swansea.”
This, like a number of my recent and forthcoming works, will not be available to buy for the foreseeable future as they will be exhibited first but I am posting details of them to keep collectors and artlovers up to date with my recent work, inspirations, and directions.
This painting is a new painting is heavily influenced by North American artists in its colouring and in its subject matter, namely the frisson that comes from human interaction, in the most apparently mundane settings.
I loved this scene, as the man seems ill at ease and not sure whether to leave or remain. He may even feel guilty that he is kinda in ear shot of the couple’s conversation and may appear to be eavesdropping. He was there first and then the couple joined him, to eagerly gossip and have a quick cigarette break. They seem so comfortable in each other’s company compared to the man who seems very ill at ease, aggrieved at having to endure their smoking and the drifting grey-white fumes.
The title refers to the time before one activity, after another activity has ceased. A limbo period filled with change checking in her purse, as she waits for her bus to arrive.
The composition is, as with many of my works, influenced the diagonal compositions as used by Henri Carter Bresson. The colouring is influenced by American artists such as Hopper and Eric Bowman. I have deliberately tried to imbue this portrait with pathos, elevating a mundane act into something semi sacred, as the light is Cathedral-like as it shines through the high glass panels of Swansea Bus Station onto her chunky cable knit cardigan.
A hot summer day on Oxford Street Swansea finds this old dude, sharply dressed for the summer heat.
The title again has two meanings – the man has bought a certain something for a precious loved one or he has a certain something as in presence or charisma, something not easily defined.
This is a signature type of painting for me – painting people walking around in their everyday lives. Painting moods, anticipations and atmospheres. Creating presence and pathos.
“Emma’s paintings paintings are lively and capture the fleeting moments of day and night in the Swansea streets. A very strong visual impact is derived from bold blocks of colours and an expressive palette that is widely used in modern art and pop art. The cinematic compositions and dramatic use of light and dark in her artworks, particularly in those night scenes where I observe some tranquility and alienation in a busy city, almost draw a subtle connection to the pieces of Edward Hopper.
I particularly like the figurative works which I think capture the everyday nuances of normal people going about their daily life”
“Freedom of the Road” which takes it’s ironic title from the taxi in the painting parked in the wrong side of the road and pointing the wrong direction as if it had freedom of the road. This painting is 80 x 60cm
Freedom of the Road (SOLD)
This painting is a bigger version of a recently sold oil painting “Taxi from Uplands” but from a more distant view point, to include more of the atmospheric, rain soaked road. An evocative night time oil painting of Uplands, an inner city area in Swansea with a taxi parked, facing the wrong way, in the middle of the road. It’s main dipped head light blares white down the shiny jet black road and intermingles with back-light reds and street-light amber and LED silvery white. They all seem to wash and stream down the wet city road with the rain.
“The Driving Rain” oil, 100 x 80cm, which has now sold to an artlover in Australia, was also part of my Noah’s Yard exhibition in December 2015.
An expressive oil painting of a fast car speeding through the torrential rain and sliding waves of water down the road of Uplands, Swansea. I love all the colours in this image, reflected in the shiny roads and gushing water, falling specks of rain and blaring car lights. Night is so colourful although one would not really expect it to be. This is what I attempt to catch in this night time paintings.
Let’s catch up…in the next days and weeks I will be posting on some of what I have been doing in the last few months of my blogsite inactivity…
The following painting, now sold, was painted for Noah’s yard solo exhibition in December 2015. Back Stage  At Noah’s Yard.
“This expressionist oil painting has taken some inspiration from Degas and his paintings from the perspective of being back stage, waiting in the wings and observing the performers, usually dancers in his case, onstage.
The question here is who is onstage? The musicians in the far distance? The people being served drinks who out to play for the evening or the lovely barmaid serving the drinks? And who is backstage for that matter? The barmaid again or the creator of this image or you, looking at this created image?Perhaps we are all backstage and onstage as someone was no doubt “backstage” watching me catch all this too?
“A Bar at Noah’s Yard” – a centre piece painting, painted especially for my art exhibition in Noah’s yard in two weeks time!
This painting of a well known bar in Uplands Swansea called Noah’s Yard, is modeled on the famous Manet painting “A Bar at the Folies-Bergère” but with two differences. The scene is now down town Swansea and the work is expressionist not impressionist. I love the use of expressionism in urban scenes as it can seem more vivid and dynamic, muscular and rhythmic, more funky even.
