I’m pleased to have two artworks from my Vessels Collection featuring in the annual Spring Open exhibition of the St Ives Society of Artists – Vessels 2 and Vessels 6.
The Vessels works are inspired by boatworks in St Ives Harbour.
The term Vessel has the obvious nautical meaning and so you may see a boat with its hull resting on the sand, with decorative markings. But look deeper and you’ll find lines and scratches as though the boat is telling a story of each and every turning tide and trip out to sea.
Whilst Vessels 6 takes the more traditional horizontal boat lines, Vessels 2 nods to the primary colour grids of Mondrian.
Mondrian’s artistic vocabulary was reduced to the three primary colours (red, blue and yellow), the three primary values (black, white and grey), and the two primary directions (horizontal and vertical). As he believed that “art should be above reality, otherwise it would have no value for man“, I’m not sure what he would make of me injecting my own textures and interpretations within a grid. I hope he would approve.
The show is on at the Mariner’s Gallery, St Ives Society of Artists, Norway Square, St Ives and runs until 10 June.
