THE MINSTER GALLERY Contemporary Art. Winchester

I am showing four paintings  here  - it is a gallery just opposite the Minster, and well worth a visit.

Flowery Border with Photinia    oil/canvas   70 x 79 cm

this is one of many paintings I have made  of this border, in this garden in the heart of some of the most beautiful familiar countryside where I have lived and painted for 35 years......

Yellow Flags and Ragged Robin   oil/canvas  70 x 70 cm 

When I was doing this painting - in front of the pond, somehow a different approach forced itself upon me.    .....    it is not how I usually paint!   That's what happens .....

Catherine's Vase III        36 x 34"   oil/board   

Catherine's Vase IV  24 x 24 cm  oil/board

These chrysanthemums in a beautiful vase that was made by Catherine Vannier - a french potter who exhibited with me at the Alpha House Gallery in Sherborne Dorset .  Alpha House was a fabulous gallery  started by my very good friend the painter Tony Birks-Hay (www.tonybirks.co.uk) but sadly it is now closed.   Times change......

AlEXANDER GALLERY 40TH BIRTHDAY EXHIBITION

The Alexander Gallery has several of my paintings.  This is just a selection,  Peter Slade is particularly fond of my ponds and he also has some Flower Paintings....

    Pond and Dillweed and Catmint    oil/linen     80 x 80

   Pond and Viper's Bugloss      oil/linen      80 x 80 cm

                      Apple Tree Pond I     oil/canvas    32 x 24"

                                 My easel and canvas in the pond!


You can see the dangers of painting on the spot .....    fortunately all was well ....  it was the wind that had blown it over!  

MY WORK IN LONDON, BRISTOL & WINCHESTER

I am currently taking part in three mixed exhibitions - all ending fairly soon....  If you do not live in Dorset the following paintings are at the RUSSELL GALLERY     www.russell-gallery.com  
(see next posts for the other galleries)  gallery re opens 11 Jan.

    The Vegetable garden and Coriander oil/canvas  24 x 36"    

   Red Crab Apples  oil/canvas  28 x 30"  

    Red Crab Apples II   10 x 11"  oil/board    SOLD



  Flowers and red field   17 x 21cm   oil/board

THE BEATLES WHITE ALBUM....

Snowy Copse...if you came this way  oil/canvas  80 x 110cm  


I prefer to work standing up ....  some how sitting to paint does not suit me, the energy is wrong.  In fact I very often listen to music - as opposed to dear old radio 4- and today I listened to the Beatles White Album that my friend Frances gave me for Christmas...    remember Blackbird and Why dont we do it in the road .... and others I have forgotten again.....!

SNOWY COPPICE .... If you came this way....

       If you came this way  oil/canvas  80 x 110cm   ....  unfinished .....

My husband, Robert, always says, when he sees a new painting, which I think of as half finished ....  or at least arrived at a point where I am maybe beginning to know where I am or what to do ...he  says " dont do anymore ...  dont overdo it "     he is often right ...   


Painting is such a weird and magical  thing ...  I love the ambiguity and endless possibility of it.   One mark,  ten minutes painting can ruin it or make it...   or the pause for a cup of tea change my perception of what is going on.    That is why I love T.S Elliott.....  one of my favorite bits  from Little Gidding ...  and of course the title of the painting...  not snowy coppice but


              If you came this way,
Taking the route you would be likely to take
From the place you would be likely to come from,
If you came this way in may time, you would find the hedges
White again, in May, with voluptuary sweetness.
It would be the same at the end of the journey,
If you came at night like a broken king,
If you came by day not knowing what you came for,
It would be the same, when you leave the rough road
And turn behind the pig-sty to the dull facade
And the tombstone. And what you thought you came for
Is only a shell, a husk of meaning
From which the purpose breaks only when it is fulfilled
If at all. Either you had no purpose
Or the purpose is beyond the end you figured
And is altered in fulfilment. 


This is (one of ) the most magical heartwarming deeply felt pieces of poetry I know.   ....    I give thanks for it.   For the person who introduced me to it, for the education which enabled me to enjoy it, for the people I can share it with.   Rock on!