Two exhibitions, two ways of working
I have two exhibitions opening this month. One at Tarpey Gallery, the other at The Courtney Gallery in Ashbourne, which is my home town.
The work for the two shows is quite different.
Tarpey Gallery
For Tarpey, I’ve been thinking about the process of painting. About how a finished painting can say something not only about the subject, but about how it’s been made.
Spring Sky (i) - Mixed media collage on paper 30×30cm
The paintings are mainly seascapes. After a recent winter trip to Northumberland, I wanted to get at the feeling of sitting by the winter sea. The power of it. They’re quite dark and moody, but also full of the sea’s energy.
It’s a physical experience, so I wanted to express that somehow.
Journal (iii), Winter Sea - Mixed media collage on notebook 26×36
I’ve chosen some quite physical surfaces to work on. Some of the paintings are on heavily collaged paper, which makes them irregular, not the formal rectangle of a canvas or board. Others are painted on sketchbooks. Not in them, but using the books themselves as the painting surface.
In my mind, that makes them quite sculptural. It also points back to the process of sketching. The immediacy, the casual nature of a sketch, but in a finished piece.
Colour has been important too. I’ve kept the palette restrained — greys, ochres, the occasional flash of cold blue — because that’s what Northumberland in winter actually feels like. There’s a bleakness to it that I didn’t want to soften. But within that, there’s a lot going on. Texture, mark-making, layers built up and scraped back. The paintings reward a bit of time spent with them, I think.
Tarpey Gallery opens 25th April at tarpeygallery.co.uk
The Courtney Gallery
The Green Field - Mixed media collage on paper 22×22cm
The series for Courtney is a group of small collage paintings that were first seen in my book ‘Beneath the Sky’. I love making these small works on paper, and I’m excited to see them framed and on the wall, not just on the page.
There’s something that changes when work moves from a book into a gallery space. The scale of the paintings are a little larger than in the book, but the experience of looking shifts. Each piece gets its own moment. I hope that gives people a chance to sit with them in a way that’s harder to do when you’re turning pages.
Ashbourne feels like the right place to show them. It’s where a lot of this work began, in walks and observations close to home. Familiar landscapes, looked at slowly.
The Courtney Gallery opens 1st May at courtneygallery.co.uk
Want to learn more?
My online courses and memberships deep dive into the process behind this style of painting. Find our more here → https://courses.lewisnoble.co.uk/
Journal (iii), Winter Sea - Mixed media collage on notebook 22×26cm
Spring Sky (ii) - Mixed media collage on paper 28×30cm
Wind & Spits - Mixed media collage on paper 22× 28cm
