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Worm’s Head Lookout Station at Rhossili, Gower

Worm Head Coastwatch station
Painting Worms Head Station, Rhossili
Worms Head Coastwatch Station (SOLD)

This is another gem in the Gower landscape – the Worm’s Head Lookout Station at Rhossili.  I really enjoyed painting this. This stout and sturdy single story building is made of granite and was built over 120 years ago, around 1896. It sits alone at the top of the high cliffs that look out towards Worms Head and beyond to Lundy Island and to the Celtic Sea. The wind-blasted building has an 8m flagstaff and a 6m wind generator.  I was inspired to paint this because of the sharp summer shadows and the isolation of the tiny building. It oozes Hopper.

It is set in a very beautiful but dangerous coastline. Between the cliffs and Worm Head is the Causeway, a scramble of rocks and rock pools, which is open for 2.5 hours either side of low tide. The tidal rise here is the second highest in the world. However, it is fatal to attempt to wade or swim to when the causeway is flooded or partially so. The coastline and waters around Gower are lovely to look at and to paint but they need to be treated with great respect. The waters around the Worm can also be dangerous to small craft, fishing boats and surfers.

This is why I am very glad that a team of local volunteers for National Coastwatch look after the interests of visitors and seafarers, alike. Since 2007, from 10am till 4pm in the winter and 10am till 6pm in the summer the lookout is staffed. If at the end of watch the Causeway has not yet flooded and there are members of the public still out on Worm’s Head, the watch is kept open until everyone is safely back on the mainland. So although the Lookout Station looks somewhat bleak and empty, the front door is, in fact, open and there is someone inside looking out for us all!

For more information on National Coastwatch see https://www.nci.org.uk/wormshead

For an excellent online map of Gower see: http://www.mapsta.net/uk-os/gower/

Emma Cownie Art©

 

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Passive Smoking

Oil painting of people in Swansea town centre
Passive Smoking

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.

Buy here

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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.

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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

 

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Still Time

 

Oil painting of elderly Swansea man
Still Time – SOLD

Delighted to have Sold “Still Life” via Artfinder a day after adding to my store! Going to the USA! ‪#‎artfinder‬ ‪#‎swansea‬

“A jaunty elderly man, all dressed and booted on his way to the shops in Uplands, Swansea.
I loved his cheerful sense of purpose and his 1970s sunglasses, that slightly look at odds with the rest of his clothing.
The title of the painting has a double meaning as in still time to get to the shop and a moment of time frozen in time, made still. Still time.

 

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 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

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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

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Autumnal Rhossili Bay

 

A new oil painting “Autumnal Rhossili Bay” –

IMG_1538

An expressionist oil painting of the world famous Rhossili Bay at the far end of Gower Peninsula, itself the first designated Area of Outstanding Beauty in Great Britain. Autumn has draped a coppery red blanket on the hillside and the windy waves have etched patterns of light mauve and blue in the sand.

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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.

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Taxi!

 

uplands taxi driverIMG_1291
Taxi From Uplands (SOLD)

A new painting -“Taxi from Uplands” – 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.

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Night Falls on Uplands

night lifeIMG_7870
“Night Falls on Uplands” SOLD

 

This is another “urban folk” painting – a style of painting I have been developing recently, expressionist people portraits from real life in the area near me here in Swansea, Wales. I try to catch the pathos of every day life and hope the paintings tell a story to the viewer. Uplands is a busy area in Swansea, full of shops, bars, coffee shops – where one can shop, eat, drink, listen to music, socialize and be merry. I hope I catch the start of that evening bustle is this painting. The cars coming into town, while the older gentleman returns home with his evening supplies and younger people appear to chat in the street. The constant coming and going and intermingling of activity.
Different people doing different things on the same city street.

This is why we love the city, the constant activity and the wide variety of people and characters, always something to catch our eye and imagination.