Category: Wales

Posted on by — Leave a comment

The Time In Between

 

Oil painting of woman waiting for the bus.
Time in Between – SOLD

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.

Posted on by — Leave a comment

A Certain Something

Contemporary oil painting of Swansea man
A Certain Something – SOLD

 

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”

Rise Art – Insiders Review

 

Posted on by — 2 Comments

My Donation to the Shelter Cymru Art Auction 2016

051a

I have just donated this painting “Farm Under Velvet Mountain” to this year’s Shelter Cymru Art Auction – always happy to support such a worthy cause.

“A must for any art lover, the Annual Welsh Art Auctions are amongst the biggest fundraising events in the Shelter Cymru calendar and are always a great evening out.”

http://sheltercymru.org.uk

Some words about this painting –

“This is an oil painting of the Table Mountian in Mid Wales.
I painted this because I loved the colours of blues, turquoise and purple which blend pleasingly with the blue-greens and terracottas of the trees and land.

Nature unearths such lovely rich colours and casts them wide in lovely complementary chromatic patchworks.
I would say this painting is inspired like so many of my mid-Wales landscapes by one of my favourite painters, Robert Bevan, whose landscapes have influenced how I paint this type of hilly upland landscape as opposed to the landscape I paint of Gower Peninsula which is usually in my own unique refractionist style which in itself influenced by expressionism.

I love the idea that colour expresses emotion, transports and alleviates the self and a creates an emotional response to a place depicted in a painting. Ideally I like to transport the viewer to the place so that the viewer somehow feels they are there or have been there in some sense. That is somehow familiar to them.
In this painting I hoped to transport one to soft lazy warmnesss of summer in the fields of Mid Wales. The velvety feel of the Table Mountain helps heighten this feeling of softness. The warm summer breeze can often give this sense of snoozy softness and I hope some of this is conveyed in this painting with the manicure trees like hairdryed Bouffants and the dusty dryness of the terracotta.”

Posted on by — Leave a comment

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.

IMG_3853

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Freedom of the Road

“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

 

Contemporary Oil painting of Night time Urban scene
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.

Posted on by — 1 Comment

The Driving 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.

Contemporary Night time scene of rainy road
The Driving Rain (SOLD)
Posted on by — 3 Comments

Backstage at Noah’s Yard

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?

Back Stage at Noah's
Back Stage at Noah’s
Posted on by — 5 Comments

A Bar At Noah’s Yard

“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.

IMG_1806
Bar at Noah’s Yard (SOLD)

Click here to buy prints

Posted on by — 2 Comments

The Cloud Vanishes

 

Delighted to say I have just SOLD the painting “The Cloud Remains” via Artfinder !
Now off to live in Leicestershire, England!

https://www.artfinder.com/…/emma-cownie/product/the-cloud-…/

“This painting is of the straggling wisps of cloud left on the hills in the Black Mountains after a passing storm. It was an amazing scene, this steam-like vapour rising out of the backs and humps of the hills. It looked as if the hills had just had a shower and the appearing sun was drying them off. I loved how the low lying clouds combed the trees and hedges as they floated past. The sun, shining through to illuminate this effect, seemed also to grow patchworks of colours from the fields around the surrounding landscape, as if the light was a nurturing spectral beam. The colours in the Black Mountains after the weather breaks on the hills are heavenly and this is what I hoped to convey. ”

the cloud remains005

Posted on by — Leave a comment

That Friday Night Blur

IMG_1377
Friday Night Blur

A new oil painting – “Friday Night Blur” – This expressionist oil painting catches three University students on the their way to some Friday night revelry. It is at some street traffic lights and as I went to take a photograph of them, the traffic light changed to green and they were off, as if on starter’s orders, half running across the street, as if they had no time to lose.

Their mutual excitement propelling them on. There was their sudden movement as the lights changed and this blurred the background as they hurried off. I like the blurred affect which trailed off behind them as it caught the excitement of a Friday night out on the town, on their way to ensuring the night would end up as a Friday night blur.  I love the amber street light spilling across the road, and the intense bright white light in the distance, beckoning them three students onwards to good times.