I am at the moment gradually hanging paintings by Nathan Ford in the gallery.
Our next exhibition for Nathan, scheduled to open in early March, will be his tenth. It is a matter of great celebration, even if for now it is only me having moments of joy in the quiet of the space here, marvelling at the brilliance of Nathan’s work.
Whatever the circumstances, this is a great collection of work. Again.

Yesterday I hung the painting La Scena on the back wall of the gallery. Depicting a street scene in Syracuse, Sicily, I went through the arch on the ground floor and looked back at it for the first time.
The gradually darkening light outside was the perfect backdrop to look at this work.

 

 

 

 

 

 

One can see the gently sloping street, the night-bustle, the shop-fronts in a cline going down the hill on the left, the lamp-posts providing scale.
A streak of brake-light red is like a memory of movement across a familiar wobbly pedestrian crossing.
Nathan paints onto an architecturally detailed skeletal drawing, so though the buildings that line the street are abstracted in blocks of colour, you can trust their integrity,
as you can with the hum of the night sky.

You can lose yourself in the larger format paintings…

If you haven’t seen the short film on Nathan yet, please have a look and let me know what you think. This painting in particular put me in mind of the time-lapse light-trails at the end of the film.
The film is available on several different platforms, YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook, as well as being on our website.

Another artist who has come under the spotlight recently is Jack Doherty, who was featured in Rick Stein’s ‘Tour of Cornwall’; Season 1 Episode 12 ‘Cornwall was a total revelation’.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Needless to say we still have a few of Jack’s pots available in the gallery. Next day delivery is possible !

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

With all the rain in the last few days the last of last weekend’s frost (above) has been washed away:

Rain comes down through the alders,
Its low conductive voices
Mutter about let-downs and erosions
And yet each drop recalls

The diamond absolutes…
Seamus Heaney ‘Exposure’

And finally, also from last weekend’s dog walk:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When despair grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting for their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
Wendell Berry, ‘The Peace of Wild things’

Thank you for getting this far!!

Aidan