New Craftsman Gallery, in Fore Street, St Ives, is welcoming shows by artists Neil Davies and Nina Brooke this summer, with supporting shows from skilled ceramicists.
Yesnaby Castle Sea Stack, by Neil Davies
The new collection from Penwith-based artist Neil Davies is inspired by a recent holiday in Orkney, where he was struck by the comparison between the two places, by the similarity of wild beauty and rawness of landscape. Works in the exhibition are inspired by Orkney’s bleak but spectacular landscape of ancient hedgerows and stone monuments, its wind-bent, salt-stunted trees and the untamed forces of the Atlantic, its coastal rock formations and its far-off horizons, all of which echo the landscape of west Cornwall, a thousand miles away to the south.
These emphatic oil-painted landscapes exhibit Neil’s typically energetic brushwork, powerful compositions and dramatic palette, and offer a unique change of subject by one of Cornwall’s foremost artists.
Off the Rocks, by Nina Brooke
Rising young artist Nina Brooke travels the world creating distinctive paintings inspired by beach and surf culture. Her use of aerial perspective reveals a unique and engaging view of the patterns that make up the world from the air. In a palette that reflects the aquamarine of the ocean in the most picturesque of places, her paintings define the shapes and colours of humans playing, swimming, surfing, and walking, in and around the coast.
Nina’s new collection is inspired by ‘wandering’, by the patterns we make exploring and making memories in the Cornish landscape, from swimming, surfing, spear fishing, and sea kayaking, to rock climbing and walking the beaches. In particular, this collection considers points of human congregation in popular areas like Porthmeor Beach, below Tate St Ives.
This iconic gallery space has the most spectacular view of the beach, but the view of Porthmeor from the sky suggests an entirely different composition, which encourages the viewer to look at the bigger picture, and how our presence impacts the surface of the land.
Neil’s show runs from 1st to 28th July, while Nina’s exhibition will be at New Craftsman from 5th August until 1st September. Neil will be accompanied by Korean-born ceramicist Jin Eui Kim. His practice explores how the perception of three-dimensional forms can be emphasized and manipulated through the application of tonal bands of colour. Alongside Nina’s work will be jewellery from Victoria Walker, who creates precisely engineered pieces inspired by her impressions of the natural world, and ceramics by Mimi Joung, whose collection is inspired by the weather, landscape, and poetry.
