The Bridport Art Scene

Trio of Panoramic Landscapes

2012-01-20T21:44:00.007Z

My most recent paintings include a trio of panoramas.

"View from Eggardon Hill across West Dorset and the sea", oil on linen, 100x40cm

"View from North Bowood, looking South across the Marshwood Vale, hills block the sea", oil on linen, 100x40cm

"View across the Marshwood Vale from just north of Salwayash", oil on linen, 100x40cm

Bridport Artists Open Studios this weekend

2011-08-23T22:09:00.002+01:00

Bank Holiday Open Studios

A dozen artists based at St Michael's Studios in Bridport's Art & Vintage Quarter are opening their studios to the public over the August Bank Holiday weekend from Saturday 27 to Monday 29 August.

Started in 1999, St Michael's Studios has established Bridport as one of the most exciting artistic communities in the West Country, providing work and exhibition space for a remarkable mix of award-winning painters, sculptors, illustrators, designers and photographers.

Open Studio events are designed to bring the public into the artists workplace, get a feeling for the creative process and maybe even a glimpse into the mind of the artist. You'll find a wide variety of art on show, from well-known names, to emerging artists and keen new-comers. So whatever your taste in art, we're sure you'll find something to enjoy.

Participating artists include Kit Glaisyer, Caroline Ireland, David Brooke, Andrew Leppard, John Boyd, Annalisa Renee, Jan Zajac, Lisa Clement, Caroline Moore, Marion Taylor, Sally Davies, Marion Irons and Jemma Thompson.

The public are also welcome to attend the Launch Party for St Michael's Open Studios that takes place at the Studios on Friday 26 August from 6.30 to 9pm.

For more information visit www.stmichaelsstudios.com

New threat to Bridport's Art & Vintage Quarter

2011-08-04T18:18:00.004+01:00

No room for Vintage Quarter in new St Michael's plans

This weekend saw another of the hugely popular Vintage Markets, a nostalgic mix of antiques, clothes and food, that takes place every month on the St Michael's Trading Estate. The event draws in hundreds of visitors to Bridport, many from as far as Brighton and London, all excited to have found a town that still understands the value of it's community.

All this could disappear if new development plans by the owners of the trading estate get the go-ahead. The plans, which were put on public display for just one day last week, propose removing half of the historic industrial estate to make way for a new housing estate. The problem is there's no room for the Vintage Quarter in the new plans, and there would also be a significant reduction in the number of small businesses currently based there.

To support us, please join our Facebook page, here...

Stakeholder Proposal Rejected
Earlier this year a working group led by Bridport Town Council invited the Haywards to form a Stakeholders group with tenant representatives from St Michael's Trading Estate. It was suggested this group could work alongside the architects to make sure that any new development would protect local businesses and also be sympathetic to the existing character of the area. However, the Haywards rejected this offer, and their architects seem to have disregarded the far-reaching appeal of the Vintage Quarter.

Many local jobs at risk
It also appears that the new plans have the tacit support of the West Dorset District Council Planning Department, and many tenants on the estate are angered that their local Planning Department seem to favour a massive private housing development instead of protecting the jobs of dozens of the most vulnerable small businesses. Indeed, the employment provided by the St Michael's Trading Estate is vital to the economic prosperity of Bridport as a whole, and surely a priority in the current economic climate.

New plans are bad for local economy
The tenants say that if they had been allowed to help design the new plans as part of a Stakeholders group, then they would have concentrated on making more low cost business units available - as every available space on the estate is currently taken, and there is always demand for more. They also point out that the Art & Vintage Quarter is now one of the most thriving areas of Bridport and that any new plans should be building on what's already working. One tenant commented "If the plans are to really benefit the town, then they should increase the number of business and light-industrial units - creating more employment for the town - rather than losing valued industrial space to a short-sighted residential development."

Our Latin Quarter is a great asset to Bridport
In fact the Art & Vintage Quarter seems to have hit a winning formula in recent years, with a vibrant mix of art studios, antiques shops and small businesses that is now widely recognised as a key cultural centre in the West Country. Indeed, the area is now seen as an important asset to Bridport's wider reputation, both in terms of the creative industries that it nurtures and the number of new visitors it brings to the town.

A community-led regeneration
The success of the Art & Vintage Quarter is largely the result of the hard work of a diverse community of enterprising and imaginative people, who have brought about a grass-roots regeneration of the former rope-making estate. The key seems to have been the coming together of a number of elements that appeal to the discerning eye of the cultural tourist - a bohemian cocktail of art, food and commerce: first there's the creative discoveries to be make while exploring the rabbit-warren of art studios in the long Edwards building, followed by a ramble through the various antiques and vintage stalls down by the river, leading to some delicious home-cooked delights in the Red Brick 'community' Cafe.

Low cost units have helped small businesses
This community-led regeneration of the trading estate has only been possible because of the many affordable premises available on the estate for start-ups and small businesses. The St Michael's Trading Estate has - for a long time - been a vital source of low-rent space for low-income workers in the creative industries - including traditional crafts such as carpentry, masonry and upholstery. It has also provided a base for the remarkable melting-pot of designers, architects and artists that has established St Michael's Studios as one of the most respected art centres in the West Country.

In fact, the trading estate has been a vital starting point for many businesses, including Top Gear - founded in 1984 as a small car accessory shop - and the Clipper Teas - winner of Great Taste Awards in 2010. Currently there's also the Centre for Local Food - which provides meals for many local schools, the Trick Factory - an indoor bicycle park, the popular Red Brick Cafe, Wessex Wines, Discount Timber, Bridport Glass & Tiles, TLC - a community recycling organisation, Crawford's Classic Car repairs, a Vintage Van repairer, PNC - industrial fabricators, and dozens of other small businesses.

Bridport's unique character at risk
In 2009 a previous development proposal for St Michael's Trading Estate proved to be hugely controversial for the town, pitting the local community against the West Dorset District Council - who had made a joint planning application with Haywards. Those plans were overwhelmingly rejected by local people, who felt that they ignored the unique character of the town and also put at risk the dozens of small businesses based on the trading estate.

Bigger fears
The biggest fear though is what else might happen if these new plans are approved. One of the main intentions of the new plan is to change of use of the site from Industrial to the much more lucrative Mixed-use consent. If the development plan is approved then this would greatly increase the value of the land, and some believe that Haywards would then simply sell the site to another developer. This new developer might then decide to evict all the current tenants, and then submit a new plan for an even larger residential development. This would effectively end Bridport's hard-won cultural quarter and shatter this unique community.

To support us, please join our Facebook page, here...

Upcoming Open Studios...

2011-07-18T18:33:00.004+01:00

I've recently updated my own website, with images of new works, and also a 136 image video of the making of "Lewesdon Tree".

These days I open my studio to the public every Saturday from 11 to 4pm, and I'm joined on the first Saturday of the month by Caroline Ireland and David Brooke, who open their studio next door.

We're now preparing for our next BIG open studios, when at least a dozen artists will take part, due to take place over the August Bank Holiday weekend, that's Sat 27 to Mon 29 August, from 10 to 5pm daily. Visit www.stmichaelsstudios.com for more information.

Other news:

Saatchi times two

Guardian Feature on Charles Saatchi
Charles Saatchi has remade the British art market three times, most famously by championing young British artists such as Damien Hirst and Sarah Lucas. But was he lucky or did he have true vision? And more importantly can he do it again?

Also, art critic Brian Sewell writes in the Evening Standard on Charles Saatchi's influence on art...

Malcolm McLuhan - The Medium is the Message / Massage

Also check out this McLuhan project, ABC Pool, a creative, collaborative platform for creating and sharing media, that has hunted down some rare, never-before-released ABC Archival footage of Marshall McLuhan from his 1977 visit to Australia and published it under a Creative Commons license.

The Hobbit Video Diary

And in the latest behind-the-scenes clip (which was filmed in part back in June) from the set of The Hobbit, Jackson, along with his tirelessly working cast and crew (it will take a scheduled 254 days to shoot both films) discussed what they’ll be doing with their, well, summer vacation. Gandalf himself, Sir Ian McKellan will be heading back to London, natch, to appear in a play, while Andy Serkis, who is pulling double duty on this project both playing Gollum and taking on the duties of a second unit director (“I’ve crossed over to the dark side,” he joked) will enjoy time off with family. Most of the cast and crew is set to return to New Zealand by Monday, September 5.

Video - Blu, grafitti artist

Wired Italy has just posted the full documentary on Blu, "Megunica," that follows the artist through Mexico, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Costa Rica, and Argentina. After the busy year that Blu has had, painting numerous murals solo and with collaborators like Ericailcane, this is just another fantastic product from a continually interesting and provocative artist.

Art Dealers critique of the Art World

Interview with Michael Werner on Artnet.com, he is one of the most influential gallery owners in the world. Together with artists such as Georg Baselitz, Markus Lüpertz, A.R. Penck and Jörg Immendorff, he assisted in bringing international acclaim to new German art, which today is represented by great painting and high prices. But it was not always this way: in 1963 he caused outrage in his Berlin gallery on the Kurfürstendamm by exhibiting the famous Baselitz painting Die große Nacht im Eimer (The Big Night Down the Drain), which depicts a boy masturbating.

Stunning Visual Arts in Bridport

2011-05-17T19:00:00.005+01:00

There's a remarkable calibre of Visual Arts on show in Bridport over the next couple of weeks -

* First of all I must invite you to the Official Launch of Bridport & West Dorset Open Studios, taking place from 6:30 to 9pm on Thursday 19 May in the Ballroom at the Bull Hotel, along with a selection of art from participating artists in a show called 6"x9" - which is the size of works that each artist has submitted.

* The actual Bridport & West Dorset Open Studios event starts this Saturday 21 and continues to the following Bank Holiday Monday 30 May.

The event has been brought forward from August this year, and extended in lengh, taking place over 10 days. You can see a couple of examples of my recent works on my BOS page.

As if that wasn't enough, there are a number of brilliant exhibitions on in West Dorset, including -

* The " 2x2x2" exhibition at the Bridport Arts Centre, showing the work of painters Wendy Poole and Alastair Barford... (two videos on these artists below)

* That exhibition changes the following week, and will be showing two new artists - Jollyon Carter and Alice Jones.

"This May Bridport Arts Centre launches a new slot for emerging visual artists from Bridport and around the region. 2x2x2 will feature two artists sharing the Allsop Gallery, for two weeks, twice. Both exhibitions will offer audiences fresh, new ideas from artists who are exploring and developing their practice. For some this will be their first gallery show." Polly Gifford, BAC Director

* Another brilliant exhibition has just opened at Sladers Yard, West Bay, showing a range of paintings by Robin Rae and Alex Lowery.

* Meanwhile, at Artwave West, in Morecombelake, there's a group show, including local artists Jon Adam and Boo Mallinson.

More information about these shows:

Arist Wendy Poole at the Bridport Arts Centre

Wendy Poole is showing a mini-retrospective of her work at the Bridport Arts Centre as part of the "2x2x2" exhibition. She is a remarkable talent, highly recommended!

Video walk-through:

Artist Alastair Barford at Bridport Arts Centre

At just 23 years old, Alastair is definately a talent to watch. This highly accomplished series of paintings will travel down to Falmouth for Alastair's Fine Art Degree Show in early June.

Video walk-through

Finally, here's a video of George Shaw, Turner Prize nominee, talking about his work at the Baltic Centre for Creative Art.

May Art in West Dorset

2011-05-05T00:39:00.027+01:00

After organising a successful Business Forum with the Spirit of Bridport last week, I'm now back in my studio, busy working on new paintings for an exhibition in Edinburgh this coming August.

NEW PAINTINGS IN PROGRESS... !

You're welcome to see the development of my latest body of work. I open my studio to the public every Saturday from 11-4pm. I'm located at St Michael's Studios in the Art & Vintage Quarter of Bridport, on the St Michael's Trading Estate, DT6 3RR. Visit my website for more details.

BRIDPORT OPEN STUDIOS 21-30 MAY

I'm also preparing for our annual Bridport Open Studios event which is coming up at the end of this month. It's been brought forward from August this year, and extended in lengh, taking place over 9 days between Sat 21 to Mon 30 May 2011. You can see a couple of examples of my recent works on my BOS page.

ARTIST ROBIN RAE

I'm particularly looking forward to an exhibition of recent paintings by Bridport artist Robin Rae, at Sladers Yard Gallery, West Bay, starting May 14. Check out Robin's website here.

ARTIST WENDY POOLE

Another great artist to see is Bridport painter Wendy Poole, showing a mini-retrospective of her work at the Bridport Arts Centre next week, as part of the "2x2x2" exhibition. She is a remarkable talent, highly recommended!

TWO BY TWO BY TWO - FOUR ARTISTS OVER FOUR WEEKS AT BAC

"This May Bridport Arts Centre launches a new slot for emerging visual artists from Bridport and around the region. 2x2x2 will feature two artists sharing the Allsop Gallery, for two weeks, twice. Both exhibitions will offer audiences fresh, new ideas from artists who are exploring and developing their practice. For some this will be their first gallery show.

The first exhibition, from 10-21 May with a preview on Wednesday 11 from 6-8pm, will feature Alastair Barford and Wendy Poole.

The second exhibition, featuring Alice Jones and Jollyon Carter, will run from 24 May – 4 June, with a preview on Wednesday 25 May from 6-8pm."

PJ HARVEY LIVE VIDEO

Local girl PJ Harbey performed at Coachella a couple of weeks ago, watch the entire set here.

PICASSO & MARIE-TERESE

Here's an interview with Diana Widmaer Picasso, art historian and granddaughter of Pablo Picasso and Marie-Thérèse, and Picasso biographer John Richardson, discuss organizing the Gagosian Gallery’s new exhibition, Picasso and Marie-Thérèse: L’amour fou. It brings together the paintings, drawings, sculptures, and prints inspired by one of Picasso’s most ideal models and enduring passions. She became the catalyst for some of his most exceptional work, from groundbreaking paintings to an inspired return to sculpture in the 1930s, yet her true identity remained a secret from even Picasso’s closest friends.

JALOPY PIZZA UP FOR AWARD

Our local based Japolopy Pizza van has been shortlisted for the British Street Food Awards, and is also featured in the this article by the Guardian on "The 10 best budget food venues in West Dorset".

"A car park in a back-street trading estate doesn't sound too promising a venue, but Bridport's St Michael's estate is home to a community of artists' studios, a regular vintage market and, on Friday evenings, the roving Jalopy Pizza van. A quirky little Peugeot JZ, imported from the south of France complete with wood-fired oven and some 30 years of service, Chez Jalopy is usually manned by two Aussie cooks. In their cramped mobile kitchen, they roll out fresh dough, load the toppings ("special" tomato sauce and Italian mozzarella, plus all the classic extras – mushrooms, prosciutto, pepperoni), before whipping crisp-thin pizzas out of the oven and into cardboard takeaway boxes. On busy evenings, it has a reputation for operating on Dorset time (as in slow), but locals get into the spirit of the thing: take wine and company and just hang out. Jalopy, incidentally, has just been shortlisted for the British Street Food Awards and a second van is in the pipeline. "

IS DORSET THE NEW CORNWALL? LOL

Of course, there's also the usual press hyperbole about Dorset, by journalists who have suddenly discovered that there's more to life than London. This article in the FT is called "Is Dorset the new Cornwall?"

HOW GENIUS WORKS

Read what inspires artists in this project called 1st Drafts by the Atlantic

"Great art begins with an idea. "Sometimes a vague or even bad one. How does that spark of creativity find its way to the canvas, the page, the dinner plate, or the movie screen? How is inspiration refined into the forms that delight or provoke us? We enlisted some of America’s foremost artists to discuss the sometimes messy, frequently maddening, and almost always mysterious process of creating something new."

NY POSTMORDERNIST PAINTER

New York artist David Salle in an interview with Artnet magazine.

THE UNIVERSE

Inspiring - here's a new collection of 'out of this world' photos by NASA.

FUNNY!

And finally, get a daily dose of comedy from Jerry Seinfeld, his new website offers up 3 clips a cday from his entire back catalogue of tv appearances. Great!

Spirit of Bridport - Business Forum - Weds 27 April

2011-04-21T01:25:00.003+01:00

Spirit of Bridport

Business Forum

Spirit of Bridport is hosting a Business Forum
from 6-8pm on Wednesday 27 April 2011 at the Bull Hotel, Bridport

A free Forum for local high-street and market-traders, tourism, and business promotion will meet for the first time from 6-8pm on Wednesday 27 April at the Bull Hotel. Organised by the Spirit of Bridport, the event aims to find ever more effective ways for businesses to work together to promote our town and support our local economy, culture & community.

Bridport is a thriving market town, but like all small towns, our traditional high street shops and assorted small businesses face increasing competition from supermarkets, the internet and growing economic pressures. We believe that the best way to promote Bridport is to tap into the huge the resource of insights and experience that we already have within our local business community.

"Our local traders are quite rightly aware of the uniqueness of that they offer, and there are a range of business people who have got some brilliant ideas for how to develop the town. We want to get them together so they can look at what they can do to promote their businesses together. The Spirit group will host the forum, but it's important that the ideas come from the business community themselves – that’s what this evening’s event is about." Ross Kayes, co-chair of Spirit of Bridport.

We hope you will join us for this informal and stimulating evening of inspired discussion, sharing of ideas and productive networking, complimented with a free buffet of local food. You're then welcome to stay on to network and socialise with a drink in the Venner bar.

We want this Spirit Business Forum to:
* Provide a forum to connect & engage our cultural, commercial & business communities
* Harness untapped entrepreneurial ideas & insights from within our business community
* Stimulate discussion & encourage the sharing of skills & resources between businesses
* Develop new creative partnerships, business collaborations and cross-promotions
* Create wide-reaching promotional projects to help raise the profile of Bridport locally and nationally, through the Press, the Internet and Social Media
* Devise a Promotional Business Plan for Bridport.

The Spirt of Bridport Business Forum takes place from 6-8pm on Wednesday 27 April at the Bull Hotel. There are limited places available, so if you operate a local business and would like to get involved in this promotional initiative, please visit spiritofbridport.org and fill in the online Business Forum application form. Alternately you can call the Forum organiser Kit Glaisyer on 07983465789.

We look forward to seeing you at 6pm on Wednesday 27 April 2011 at the Bull Hotel.

Save the Cafe Royal, Bridport

2011-02-21T22:09:00.008Z

It's been a busy old time in Bridport...

I'm currently devoted to my "Save the Cafe Royal" campaign, with our iconic Cafe due to go to auction this coming Friday 26 Feb. However, we're hoping to pursuade the West Dorset District Council to postpone the auction, and allow the local community to make them the first offer...

Community Group Offers to Buy the Cafe Royal

A consortium of local people from Bridport is hoping to save the Cafe Royal for the benefit of the community. The group has come together with the express desire to buy, repair and refurbish the Cafe Royal, so that it can continue to serve the town and also grow to become an iconic destination for travelers to the South West.

Representatives from the consortium are now in negotiations with the West Dorset District Council in the hope that they will be allowed to make an offer for the properties before they go to auction on 26 February. They believe this is their last chance to safeguard the future of the Cafe Royal for the community.

The consortium includes several antiques dealers from the Vintage Market on the St Michael's Trading Estate. They are keen to reinstate the period & retro furnishings in the Cafe and believe it could become a really popular destination, attracting hundreds visitors to the town from across the country - just as the Ace Cafe, in North London attracts thousands of bikers.

Kit Glaisyer, who started the campaign to save the Cafe Royal says "this iconic building should really have been offered to the local community before going to auction. I really hope the WDDC decides to postpone the auction and give local people the first option to buy the Cafe Royal, so that it can continue to serve both visitors and local people. I'm particularly concerned that if it goes to auction this much-loved local asset could be sold to an unsympathetic developer who would just knock it down to build more houses. Instead, we should take this opportunity to let the community refurbish the Cafe into a brilliant retro venue, which would soon become a huge asset to the town."

He goes on to say "we've had an amazing public response to our campaign, and what's really exciting is that we now have a group of local people eager to buy the Cafe, who appreciate it as a unique and valuable local asset, and want to make it into the iconic destination it deserves to become."

To join our Save the Cafe Royal Facebook Campaign, click ~~here~~.

To give you an idea of what's possible with a refurbished Cafe Royal, I've attached some photos of the Ace Cafe in North London, that attracts thousands of bikers and vintage car enthusiasts throughout the year...

The Ace Cafe is a popular destination for bikers from across the UK

Kit's Saturday Open Studios

2011-02-12T00:31:00.007Z

My Saturday Open Studios are continuing this week.

Apologies to those who came last week, I was caught up in the "Spirit of Bridport" launch at the Bridport Arts Centre (which went very well). You can find out more about the Spirit of Bridport in my previous post, and at the website www.spiritofbridport.org

The other important issue I'm concerned about is the upcoming auction of the iconic Cafe Royal in Bridport. You can read join the Facebook group, and read more about it at the Real West Dorset blog.

On a lighter note(?) is the imminent release of the new album by local girl PJ Harvey. I was fortunate to see her play live at Eype Church - where she recorded the album - in December, and you can catch a number of interviews with her, include NME, 6 Music, Radio 4 and the Culture Show. You can also listen to her entire album online, here.

For see more of my art visit my website, or visit Bridport.org to see what else is going on art-wise in Bridport.

Official Launch of the Spirit of Bridport

2011-02-01T22:18:00.006Z

Spirit of Bridport Launch

Saturday 5 February 2011, 10am onwards

Saturday 5th February sees the official launch of the Spirit of Bridport at the Bridport Arts Centre. Spirit of Bridport was created by Councillor Ros Kayes in 2007 to maximise the potential for the Bridport economy while the Olympics are being held at Weymouth.

The group has now grown in scope, with representatives from across the community working together to offer a forum to support local organisations and promote the Best of Bridport leading up to 2012 and beyond.

There are 3 events taking place on Saturday 5th February - a Community Market at the Bridport Arts Centre in the day, then an invitation-only official Launch Event in the evening - followed by an informal get-together & networking event at the Hayloft, behind the Bull Hotel, Bridport.

1 Community Market 10am to 2pm
From 10am to 2pm there will be a Community Market at the Bridport Arts Centre, at which you can find out about the wealth of events, activities & opportunities on offer in Bridport. There will be a number of performances, presentations and demonstrations by local organisations, with something that should appeal to all ages, including:
2 Evening Launch 6:30 to 8:30pm
The evening event will start at 6:30pm with Bristol-based band “Bucky” premiering a new song about Bucky Doo, along with video projections of a newly-commissioned moving-image work by artist Sue Palmer - who worked with young people at PVA MediaLab and familiar faces from around the town.

This will be followed by an invitation-only Launch event to introduce local groups & organisations to the Spirit of Bridport, and will include an introduction by mayor Geoff Ackerman and short talks by Ros Kayes (Spirit Chair), Polly Gifford (BAC Director), Gary Fooks (Team Dorset), and Candida Blaker (Earth Festival Lyme Regis).

If your organisation has not yet received an invitation to the Launch event please contact Linda Bullock at Bridport Town Council on 01308 456722

3 Informal get-together & networking event 8:30pm onwards
The Launch event will then be followed by a chance to relax at an informal networking event at the Hayloft, behind the Bull. Everyone is invited to join us, meet new people and catch up with friends, from 8:30pm onwards.

To find out more visit the website www.spiritofbridport.org

Rob Ridge demonstrates his amazing BMX skills outside the Bridport Arts Centre between 10am to 2pm on Saturday 5th February

A detail of the painting "Spirit of Bridport" by 19th Century artist Fra Newberry - inspiration for our group

Thoughts of a painter...

2011-01-09T23:59:00.008Z

When a painting has gone to start a new life...

Well, the new owner of "Lewesdon Tree" picked up the painting this afternoon... and I'm gutted!

I guess that over 7 months I establish quite an intimate bond with my work, and we went through a real emotional roller coaster together.

The painting process is unpredictable and ever evolving, there are surprises and disappointments, discoveries and irritations, and eventually something remarkable and unique is created.

This was a challenging painting, which is exactly how I like my work to be - always pushing myself to greater accomplishment, to becoming a true master of the medium, and creating something that will last the test of time.

The intensity of thought that these paintings put me through is immense. Even when I've been miles from my studio it's been on my mind, playing with me. I guess this is because the first place I paint is in my mind - I'll have an idea and then paint it in my imagination first, before working it on the actual canvas.

So now I'll be directing all of that focus somewhere else... onto the next painting, the next project, the next exhibition. But it's made me remember that, at some point, every painting deserves the artists full attention. I also remember this when I've got several paintings on the go - which I have to do, as they take several months to make. You still have to give them each your undivided attention when you pick them up to continue to work on them. And every painting has a unique quality or character, and it's own demands. You can't simply jump from one to the next. You have to let yourself be absorbed by the mood of that particular painting. Because only once you feel it's 'spirit', only then can you know where it's leading you. It's like fine-tuning an instrument. Only it's a new instrument every time, and the tuning could be anywhere on the scale.

Every painting is the result of hundreds (or thousands) of choices - darker or lighter, intensify or subdue, proceed or remove, comfort or discomfort? And it's also a matter of degree - how bright, how moody, how loose or tight? And every choice is a moment of intensity, a moment of destiny. Sometimes you can wipe off the paint while it's still wet, and sometimes you can't because you find you've achieved something along the way that you don't want to sacrifice.

Well, bon voyage to "Lewesdon Tree". I hope that you're loved by generations to come. I put 7 months of my time into you. And that 7 months was a focus of the 12 years I've lived in Bridport, and that's on top of the still deeper connection that I can trace all the way back to my experience of growing up in the countryside of north Dorset.

And you know what? I love the Romance of this, I love the emotion and my passion for this place. I love that my painting relates to the entire history of landscape painting, from the Dutch 17th Century painters, to the European Romantics, artists of the Sublime and the Hudson River School. I love how it also relates to the French plein-air painters, and to Cezanne and the Impressionists. Paul Cezanne in particular, who like me, left the city to live in the country, and then returned to paint the same scenes over and over again.

Cezanne understood that a painting is always more than a depiction of something. It is also a thing in itself, an object that has it's own identity, and yet it can somehow capture the very experience of looking. I've never heard a critic talk any real sense about Cezanne, so I'll tell you this: stand in front of one of his paintings and just look at it. Stop trying to decipher it and just let it wash over you. Somehow it comes alive, you can feel the wind through the trees, you can feel the heat of the sun, and feel the textures of the rocks.

You have to realise that Cezanne set art off in a new direction, or you could say, in many directions. Van Gogh took it one way, Gauguin another, and Picasso still another. But there is no 'linear' track in art, which means that an artist today can draw inspiration from Cezanne and take painting on a whole new trajectory in the opposite direction to Modernism, Post-Modernism, etc.

This is what I'm doing. I'm taking Cezanne in another direction, and I'm taking Constable in another direction, and Casper Friedrich and Frederic Church. And I'm willing to do the work, to put in the hours, to do the research, to develop the skill, to look and learn and evolve.

Until next time.

"Lewesdon Tree" unveiling this Sat 8 Jan

2010-12-12T22:29:00.015Z

A Happy New Year from Bridport!

The first thing I have to mention is that after 7 months of work, I've finally finished my latest landscape commission.

I will unveil "Lewesdon Tree" tomorrow, Saturday 8 January, from 11am-5pm, at St Michael's Studios, Bridport, Dorset DT6 3RR

"Lewesdon Tree" is a 42x56inch oil painting on linen, and is a commissioned painting that has been seven months in the making. It captures the intricate subtleties of a late spring evening, as the sun sets between Pilsden Pen and Lewesdon Hill, and is the latest in my ongoing series of west Dorset landscapes inspired by my experience of living in the West Country and by my memories of growing up in north Dorset.

Saturday Open Studios

I will continue to open my studios to the public on Saturdays from 10am to 3pm throughout the Spring. Please contact me if you would like to discuss a commission or arrange a studio visit at another time.

If you're thinking of a commission...
If you'd like to discuss commissioning a painting then this is how it works - I'm always preparing new ideas (photos, collages and sketches) for paintings, and these form the basis of a discussion with the patron about what could be my next work. We tend to quickly find a subject that inspires us both, and then we agree on the size and price. So, if you would like to discuss some ideas, please contact me and we'll arrange a studio visit.

Kit Glaisyer,
St Michael's Studio, Bridport, Dorset DT6 3RR
Tel 07983465789

Website www.kitglaisyer.com + Twitter @kitglaisyer

Coming Up next time...
In my next post I'll be sharing news of the first "Spirit of Bridport" launch event at the Bridport Arts Centre, on Sat 5 Feb, also looking into controversial new plans to develop the St Michael's Trading Estate. I'll also post some pics from a rare gig by PJ Harvey at Eype Church that I went to in December... plus reveal details about my upcoming Edinburgh show this summer 2011...

St Michael's Xmas Open Studios this coming weekend

2010-11-29T11:54:00.012Z

St Michael's Xmas Art Open Studios, Sat 4 & Sun 5 December 2010

Explore the studios and galleries of a dozen artists at St Michael's Studios in Bridport, for an Open Studios exhibition on Sat 4 & Sun 5 December, 10am to 5pm. The open event offers art lovers and collectors an inspiring taste of this remarkable community of award-winning painters and illustrators at the forefront of the growing Bridport art scene.

A dozen artists are taking part including Kit Glaisyer, Caroline Ireland, David Brooke, Paul Blow, Prue Heward-Morgan, Jan Zajac, John Boyd, Philomena Harmsworth, Marion Taylor, Annalisa Renee, Sally Davies and Marion Irons. (More details about all these artists can be found at www.bridport.org)

Kit Glaisyer will be showing his latest commission, "Lewesdon Tree" that he has been working on since the summer. It is part of a series of paintings of views across the Marshwood Vale that each take from 6 to 12 months to complete. He works in a large scale with oil on canvas, using multiple glazes and a highly refined technique to create powerful evocations of light, space and mood. www.kitglaisyer.com

Marion Irons has recently moved into a bigger studio, and is inspired by the beauty of the Dorset coast and landscape, exploring the textures, forms and surface qualities of the natural landscape. She says "I paint the way light and the force of the natural elements affect the landscape, and I use mixed media to interpret what I see in a more expressive and tactile way."

Annalisa Renee is the most recent artist to join St Michael's Studios. She has just started a new body of work based on the horse, following the magnificent tradition of horse painters from the past, such as Rosa Bonheur, Landseer and Degas. She says "I've drawn horses since childhood, but never spent time painting them. They have such strength and wonderfully fluid shapes and a also such a rich mythology."

Philomena Harmsworth has been working on a painting of the well-known local potter Katkin Tremaynet making her 'salmon” pottery', which explores the conflict between the imprisonment of routines, and the need to create. Philomena says "I have been considering how people can make a journey in their heads. Children make it quite naturally, slipping easily into play and imagination. Adults have to work more consciously to achieve it, by being creative." www.philomenaharmsworth.com

Caroline Ireland has been working on a series of still life paintings using pastel on black paper. She says "this really makes a gorgeous and vibrant combination, I try to reduce everything I see to a map of patterns and lines and blocks of colour. I think composition is really important, but for me this is more instinctive than organised. I paint lots of pots of flowers as I love the contract between natural forms and human artefacts."

David Brooke is a former president of the Society of Graphic Artists, and will be showing his acrylic paintings, including "Growth", a painting loosely based on the theme of the Green Man, which is a symbol of regeneration, but can also appear as strange and confusing.

Marion Taylor will be showing a series of landscapes depicting Dorset's ancient hills. She says "I am fascinated by variations in the landscape bought about by changing seasons and I strive to portray the lyrical and sensual spirit of the landscape bought about by thousands of years of use by man & beast."

Jan Zajac comes from a family of Belgian artists; his uncle was a leading painter of the Ostend school based at Marienkerke. These painters tended to paint maritime subjects, often with a knife, and Jan has started to do the same, also painting portraits and nudes.

Sally Davies is an artist who likes to push boundaries with her work. She says "I'm interested in Art Deco and Art Nouveau, and my themes vary from nature to spiritual. It may be trees in the shape of a cathedral or a Green Man somewhere in the sky behind a tree with magical light coming through."

St Michael's Studios is located in Bridport's Art & Vintage Quarter, on the St Michael's Trading Estate, in a red brick building with a tower, visible from the Waitrose car park.

The Xmas Open Studio will run from 10am to 5pm on Saturday 4th and Sunday 5th December 2010. Visit www.stmichaelsstudios.com for more information.

Tweets from Bridport

2010-11-14T22:32:00.014Z

Right, LOTS going on in Bridport (of course). First up, I've been enjoying opening my studios to the public from 10-3pm every Saturday. I spend most of my time painting on my own, which I love, but it really doesn't mean anything unless I share my work with others. I also love that people can come and see my work progress and get a taste of an artist's life.

Also, Bridport's Saturday market just seems to get busier every week, and more & more people are discovering the Art & Vintage Quarter down on the old St Michael's Trading Estate.

The new Red Brick Cafe is just 50 yards down from my studio, and serves the most delicious food I've ever eaten (made with love), all for under £10 ! It's truly remarkable, and yet another example of the unique quality that makes Bridport stand out as an example, not just to the West Country, but to the rest of the UK.

It's all very well talking about 'Big Society' and 'empowering local communities', but we all know most of it is just political spin and hot air. The fact is that Bridport is a real example of 'big society' in action, where the community has come together naturally. If politicians really want to encourage community initiatives, then they should visit and learn from the people of Bridport, where it's already happening.

With Christmas approaching, there are several exhibitions opening, and I've also been to 3 Private Views in the last 3 days.

Thursday evening was an opening of an exhibition of George Wright's photos at the upstairs of Beach & Barnicott, South Street Bridport.

On Friday evening I went to an opening of paintings by Gerry Dudgeon, in his studio near Melplash.

Then on Saturday evening I went to the opening of "Sea" at Sladers Yard, West Bay, where I met artists Alex Lowery and my old London studio colleague Rufus Knightwebb.

I've also started 'Twittering', mainly in order to keep the front page of Bridport.org up-to-date. I'm going to be covering exhibition openings, interesting events, inspiring links, as well as the development of my own work, so click on the link below to follow my thread...

I'd put off signing up to Twitter for ages, because I didn't really appreciate what it means... but now I'm doing it, I'm beginning to realise it could be quite revolutionary. I think all of these new 'social networking' tools are going to have a profound effect on the way we communicate, share ideas and do business in the future.

Obviously I'm already familiar with Blogging, and I maintain a Facebook page... But what I like about Twitter is that it offers an intimate taste of the thoughts and ideas of anyone we choose to follow. We don't have to apply to be their 'Friend', and while it's possible to follow 'fan' pages on Facebook, it all seems rather complicated compared to the simple efficiency of Twitter, and if someones tweets are uninspiring, you can simply 'unfollow' them.

So, next up for me is my next Saturday Open Studio this coming 20 Dec, and the following Sat 27 Dec. Please pop in if you're in town on a Saturday, you can see the exciting (and rather intense) progress of "Lewesdon Tree", my current commission...

Then we've got our annual St Michael's Xmas Open, on Sat 4 and Sun 5 December, with a dozen artists taking part. More details on that in the coming weeks...

Autumn Painting

2010-10-29T12:08:00.008+01:00

Press Release

Kit Glaisyer to open his studio on Saturdays

Artist Kit Glaisyer will be opening his studio to the public on Saturdays from 10am to 3pm, starting October 30. He is based at St Michael's Studios in the emerging Art & Vintage Quarter of Bridport, on the St Michael's Trading Estate.

Kit will be showing a wide range of recent paintings, including his current commissioned project: a late-spring view from Lewesdon Hill looking towards Pilsdon Pen. Visitors can talk to the artist, see several works in progress, and buy original paintings, prints and cards.

Kit Glaisyer is probably best known for his popular series of paintings of the "Cafe Royal" - the 50's style diner located down by the old bus depot. He followed this with a series of life-size "Drip Figure" paintings, first shown at a solo show at the Bridport Arts Centre in 2004, and then in an exhibition in London in 2007. He is now gaining widespread acclaim for his series of large-scale landscape paintings, many showing views across the Marshwood Vale.

Kit says he wants his "art to remind people of the beauty and mystery of the world, whether it's an old cafe or an epic landscape.When we feel inspired by life then our inner creativity is unleashed, and we realise we already have all the talents and resources we need."

St Michael's Studios is located in the red brick building with a tower, on the St Michael's Trading Estate, visible to the south-west of Waitrose car park. The area is now becoming known as Bridport's Art & Vintage Quarter, with art studios and dozens of antiques & vintage shops opening, as well as a monthly Vintage Market and the new Red Brick Cafe.

Kit Glaisyer's studio will be open from 10am to 3pm every Saturday from October 30 until December 2010. Visit www.kitglaisyer.com for more information. To make an appointment to view his studio at another time call 0798 3465789.

Also on:
The monthly Vintage Market takes place this Sunday 31 October.

A group of local artists are exhibiting at Eype Centre for the Arts this weekend.

Recent graduates Alice Jones and Helen Jones are part of a group show at Artwave West, in Morecombelake.

Simon Quadrat is showing alongside Peter Swanson and Petter Southall at Sladers Yard.

Indian October & Art Fairs

2010-10-11T13:39:00.009+01:00

Painting the Sublime
I've been busy working on my "Lewesdon Tree" commission. After some time spent gradually building up the background, I've now moved onto the foreground, and it's becoming a very intense process. This is where it gets fun, and also more complicated, as I have to switch between painting on several different picture planes. It's the point at which the painting really begins to communicate with me, to beguile and seduce me. This is always encouraging because there's still a fair way to go...

Some landscape painters develop short-hand techniques in order to express certain effects of light, shape and ambiance, but I'm not interested in mimicking these sensations, I want to get to the essence of the experience, and capture the over-whelming emotional complexity of the moment.

We've got so used to getting scientific explanations for how we 'interpret' reality, but all of these lack an appreciation of the mystical, the infinite, and the unknowable. The truth is that we're just a part of something far bigger than us that we'll never fully understand. But we can always feel it. And we can all have a mystical experience simply by standing in a field, watching a sunset or looking up at the night sky.

Thinking of skies, I've also been working on the stormy clouds in the latest in my series of paintings of views from Allington Hill looking out across the Marshwood Vale. I always start from a photographic reference for my skies, because they contain such a dense fluid complexity and chaos, and I don't want to only paint the parts I understand. This for me is how Science and Art can complement each other, the photographic process offers a form of scientific reality, and my painted poetic interpretation expresses my subjective reality.

Art Fairs
It was the Frieze Art Fair in London last weekend. This contemporary art fair has established the Frieze Art Week in the 2nd week of October, and has led to several satellite fairs popping up to mop up some of the visiting international art collectors. This year these other fairs included the Plus Art Projects underneath Atlantis (the largest art materials shop in Europe) just off Brick Lane in the East End. There was also the Sunday Art Fair, and the Street Art focused Moniker International Art Fair, plus the Future Can Wait - yes it can in their case...

Before I go to London I like to check out what's on in all galleries, and I tend to use the Art Forum Magazine online listings page. I also use Artinfo.com which has a smaller selection of galleries.

I also like to keep abreast of happenings in the art world while I'm in Dorset, so I subscribe to a weekly newsletter from Artinfo.com which offers a wide range of stories covering the international art scene. Another good source of art world info comes from the Art Newsletter. Then there's Artnet.com, which is broader contemporary art resource and also has an online magazine with some good reviews and stories.

In terms of 'real' magazines, there's Art Review, Art World magazine, and Modern Painters - which unfortunately seems to cover less and less actual painting...

For broader cultural insights KultureFlash is a weekly online magazine that has been covering contemporary culture since 2002, and is well worth a read.

In terms of videos, the Tate Museum offers a wide selection of artist interviews and exhibition reviews, for instance, here's a short film on Peter Doig. There's more interviews on the US TV /Internet Show "Charlie Rose", and while it doesn't have many fine artists on, it does have lots of Film Directors (JJ Abrams) and much more besides. Here's his interview with Damien Hirst from back in 2008.

Anyway, back to the easel...

Autumn in Bridport, West Dorset

2010-10-03T22:26:00.007+01:00

I've started October with a major clear-out of my studio. I seem to accumulate so much stuff, but everything interests me, so it's hard to chuck it out. But I've also been working on my "Lewesdon Tree" commission, which is quite a large painting at 42"x56", so I want all the space I can get.

Another painting I've been really enjoying is a view of the path on Lewesdon Hill, disappearing into the darkness as you head up hill. The row of trees actually reminds me of Moby Dick, as the trunks are like a whale's ribs... I guess I thought of this because Steph Goodger, a painter I've known since college days, loves Moby Dick, and also the painting "Raft of the Medusa", by Gericault.

I've also updated my website www.kitglaisyer.com which is a constant job, but it's now so easy to share what I create with an international audience. I've also added a 'share' button because I've found that I often share things I've found on-line on Facebook or Gmail. I might as well make it easy for people to share my work!

(I've also added a Share button to this Blog if you'd like to spread the word...)

I've also very excited about all the new works I've got planned for these coming months. I've got many more panoramic paintings in my mind, with vistas from Eggardon Hill and Shipton Hill, and more across the Marshwood Vale. I was also out today, photographing and sketching the brilliant Autumn skies. So watch this space...

I love living in Bridport; this town is full to the brim of people rich in imagination and independent in spirit. We love it here because we have managed to retain a quality of life and sense of community that seems to have been lost in most other towns. And in recent years Bridport has been experiencing a renaissance that is the envy of our neighbours -

* The Electric Palace goes from strength to strength, with a packed house at most events
* The Bull Hotel has expanded with it's own Pie & Pizza Bar in their Stables
* The St Michael's Studios complex is thriving, raising the national profile of our art scene
* Next door the Antiques & Vintage district has now transformed the old Top Gear garage, with dozens of small businesses providing a cornucopia of furnishings, clothing and adornments
* While over the road, the new Cafe in the Red Brick House is proving to be a major hit
* The Lyric Theatre - formerly at threat of residential development - has been bought by performers Niki McCretton and Mark Parrott, and will re-open to the public next year
* Our 1st Hat Festival was a great success, and a brilliant celebration of a local family business
* The Vintage Market really is THE place to be on the last Sunday of the month
* The Literary Festival is about to start, it runs from Fri 29 October to 7 November, with talks by the likes of Andrew Graham-Dixon and Peter Snow giving talks.

You'll notice that all of these lovely enterprises are driven by inspired individuals and supported by the local community, and yet they're receiving national acclaim, and pulling in visitors from across the country. We're not waiting for some government policy, Council approval or 'social initiatives' to get us started, we just rely on our own ideas and passion to make things happen.

I mention this because recently there have been some indications that developers are once again eyeing up Bridport's historic St Michael's Trading Estate, in the hope they can get mixed-use planning permission (it's currently just light industry), cash in and convert it into Poundbury mk.2, despite the fact that it is now home to a thriving Arts and Vintage district.

What these misguided architects, developers and Councillors don't appreciate or understand is that the majority of people love this untouched part of town just the way it is, and certainly don't want it to be 'gentrified'. The other key concern is that if the new development plan is anything like the last one, then it will turf out dozens of small businesses - that rely on low rents - and replace them with units that only solicitors, accountants and estate agents will be able to afford.

If you would like to register an interest in protecting Bridport's Art & Vintage Quarter, please give us your email HERE and we will be in touch about future development plans.

On a lighter note, in art, there's some great art coming up this month, first of all with an Autumn Exhibition coming up a Artwave West Gallery, in Morecomelake in a couple of weeks.

The exhibition includes work by recent graduates Helen Jones and Alice Jones. I'm particularly looking forward to seeing Alice's drawings after meeting her at the Bridport Open Studios launch in August. She is also the winner of the Young artist of the year award awarded by Clarke Willmott, Bristol, UK. I haven't met Helen Jones, but judging by her website, she makes remarkable charcoal drawings of the sea.

Meanwhile at the Sladers Yard Gallery in West Bay, Simon Quadrat is giving an artists talk on 15 October at 7pm, as part of "In My Mind's Eye" (until Nov 7), with Peter Swanson and Petter Southall.

Busy Bridport Weekend

2010-09-27T13:07:00.006+01:00

You'd think that things would quieten down a bit now that we're out of the tourist season and into autumn, but September has been a very busy month for Bridport. Recently we've hosted the first Hat Festival - check out this big crowd in Bucky-Doo Sqaure, as well as having packed Gala screenings of "Tamara Drewe" and "From Time to Time" at the Electric Palace, which has also had saxophonist Courtney Pine down to play.

This weekend has been particularly entertaining, starting with dinner on Friday evening at the new Cafe on the St Michael's Trading Estate, which the Jalopy pizza van has already make into a great venue over the summer. The Cafe is run by Anna and Joy, who provide delicious and very affordable home cooked food from Wednesday to Saturday.

Of course on Saturday we have the main Market on South street, which stretches all the way down South Street, and was packed once again. This was followed on Sunday by the latest Vintage Market on the St Michael's Trading Estate. It has an amazing atmosphere, with people of all ages, with their children and dogs, and this week live music from Mitch Norman and a Jazz Duo. If you haven't yet visited, then I highly recommend exploring this thriving antiques district just a little bit further on from St Michael's Studios.

Then I went to the opening of the freshly painted Bridport Arts Centre on South Street, and met with the new incoming Director Holly Gifford. Current Director Lindsay Brookes had asked Abbotsbury artist John Meaker to set up a life modelling session, only this time the models were the guests to the event. John also teaches at his studios in Abbotsbury and also leads life drawing sessions at the Bridport Arts Centre.

Next up was the two day event at the Jam Factory in Uplyme, organised by artist Gail Sagman, called "From the Absurd to the Ridiculous, a feast of Live Art." A few artists from Bridport were involved, including Jollyon Carter and Linzi Light, as well as various Lyme artists, amazing poet Sally Crabtree from Cornwall and wacky Martin Zet from Czchecoslovakia. (Please let me know if anyone has filmed the event, and I'll upload a link to Youtube.)

Tamara Drewe Gala screening tonight at Electric Palace, Bridport

2010-09-17T11:49:00.006+01:00

First up is my triptych of the Three Graces - Euphrosyne, Aglaia and Thalia for the "Six by Nine" launch exhibition at the Bull Hotel, for the Bridport Open Studios event over the August Bank Holiday weekend.

It was a great little exhibition, and I'm sure we'll repeat it next year. It also set the tone for the Open event, which was excellent as usual.

Next up is a computer mock-up preview of my exhibition (just on for tonight) at the Electric Palace, Bridport, for the Charity Gala screening of the new Stephen Frears film "Tamara Drewe". There's still lots to do, but we're all looking forward to it!

This exhibition is only on for one night as I'm including a couple of works I no longer own. If you'd like to see my work in the flesh, just email/call me to arrange a studio visit. Also check out my online portfolio at www.kitglaisyer.com (where you'll also find contact details).

Bridport Hat Festival starts today! It kicks off this evening with Hank Wangford & the Lost Cowboys at the Bridport Arts Centre.

Just a few days left to listen to this weeks Gilles Petterson on Radio 1, this week in conversation with rising superstar Janelle Monae. I've been listening to Gilles for years, brilliant selection of funk, jazz, r&b, contemporary and classic.

Meanwhile, Keith Coventry won the John Moores painting prize yesterday, the latest in a number of accomplished artists to win the prize, including Peter Doig, Alexis Harding and Ged Quinn.

"Green Goddess" by Inka Essenhigh

Some other artists I'm enjoying include this current New York exhibition by Jean-Pierre Roy. and a site of video art by Franci Alys, plus here's a Tate interview with one of my favorite artists - Glenn Brown, and a link to the website of the remarkable New York artist Inka Essenhigh (pic above).

Monday morning painting

2010-09-13T13:40:00.003+01:00

Monday morning painting, listening to an endless loop of "Tank" by Audioporn (see previous post). Painting, for me, really is the best way to start the day/week, getting into a pure creative space, also in this case a celebration of nature, just as the seasons are changing.

This is my current commission, the evening sun dazzling through the branches & leaves on the path up Lewesdon hill, bleaching out the trunk of a young tree.

It's a complex painting, which is why, once I've sketched in the basic composition, I then work my way from back to front. I love to challenge myself, and I wouldn't envy anyone undertaking this painting, but I just get on with it, believing I'll eventually pull it off.

This afternoon I've got to put on my 'business head' and get my exhibition ready for the Tamara Drewe Charity Gala this coming Friday. I'm looking forward to it.

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More happenings in Bridport...

2010-09-04T22:27:00.006+01:00

("Sunburst", 72"x48", oil on canvas, work in progress)

Lots to catch up on this week...

The Bridport Open Studios launch at the Bull Hotel was a great success, and set the tone for our busiest Open event so far. We had over 700 visitors to St Michael's Studios over the August Bank Holiday weekend, which makes me wonder if we should extend the Open event over a whole week next year...?

I've been having a well-deserved break from helping with BOS, and I've had a great week painting in the studio, getting on with commissions, and a whole series of new works based on Lewesdon Hill and the Marshwood Vale.

I've also been invited to exhibit my recent West Dorset paintings at the Gala launch event for the new Tamara Drewe film at the Electric Palace on Friday 17th September. I'm looking forward to putting on a really great exhibition & I'll have more information about that in my next blog.

"As Tamara Drewe was filmed in the nearby locations of Salwayash, Dorchester, Beaminster and Yeovil, the Gala screening at the Electric Palace will make the evening even more special with the director, writer and cast collectively returning to Dorset for a final time.

Stephen Frears came to international attention in 1985 with his production of ‘My Beautiful Launderette’ for channel 4. The film received theatrical acclaim and received a nomination for an Academy Award and two nominations for BAFTA awards. Frears went on to make films of great acclaim including Dangerous Liasons (1988), High Fidelity (2000), Dirty Pretty Things (2003), Mrs Henderson Presents starring Dame Judi Dench and Bob Hoskins and The Queen (2006) for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture.

The film stars Gemma Arterton (Prince of Persia, Disappearance of Alice Creed) as the eponymous Tamara, British star Dominic Cooper (An Education, Mamma Mia!), Tamsin Greig (Cuckoo, Sean of the Dead) and Roger Allam (The Queen, The Wind that Shakes the Barley)."

The Palace will also be hosting a Gala screening of Julian Fellowes new film "From Time to Time" on Friday 24 September.

"This will be Julian Fellowes’ second Gala screening at the Electric Palace in Bridport. The Premiere of The Young Victoria was held at the Electric Palace in March 2009 which attracted a full house audience and went on to win an Oscar for Best Costume Design."

The Palace is also going to be hosting a number of live Video performances over the next few months, including several by the National Theatre and also Operas, as disclosed by Real West Dorset. A full list of events is available on the Electric Palace website. They are also continuing to host a number of high calibre gigs by the likes of Courtney Pine, Reg Meuross and Neville Staple.

Meanwhile, great things have been happening down the road on the St Michael's Trading Estate, now known as the Art & Vintage Quarter.

The trading estate was absolutely packed with hundreds of visitors on the Sunday of the August Bank Holiday weekend, with both the Open Studios event on and the latest Vintage Market (held on the last Sunday of the month).

It seems that word of the Vintage Market is spreading quickly by word-of-mouth, and I think it embodies what makes Bridport so unique, with a vibrant mix of enterprise and our eclectic community, experienced in the lovely laid-back surroundings of the historic rope & net making estate. There's also the excellent Jalopy Pizza van and an amazing new Cafe, serving wonderful food at very reasonable prices.

The couple behind the Vintage Market are Sharon and Michael from the Old Albion store. Like so many Bridport folk, they fell in love with the town when on holiday here, and have been instrumental in bringing about the vintage Renaissance on the trading estate.

They had the imagination to see the potential in the Vintage Quarter, following on from the Cornucopia stores started by Nigel and Kate, and the subsquent influx of antiques stores in the former Top Gear workshop, led by Bob of Les Allees. You can see a list of these traders at Bridport Antiques.

On Friday night Old Albion hosted a promotional event called "No Country for Old Albion", with several bands playing for the entertainment of the public. It was a remarkable evening, and my favorite band were "Audioporn", playing a brilliant 3/4 hour set with a full version of their classic 1st album "Tank". You can watch my short video of their performance here, watch them perform it at the Brighton Festival here and visit their Myspace page.

You've probably gathered by now that something quite amazing is going on in Bridport, and just to prove the point, next up is the Bridport Hat Festival, set to run between Friday 17 and Sun 19 September, at venues throughout the town. (We'll be having an Open Studio at St Michael's).

As far as art goes, one exhibition I'm hoping to visit is the "Artists of the Jurassic Coast" at Eype Church Centre for the Arts. Here's a review from Bridport Radio (it's NOT actually a radio station, but I guess is named as such because it aims to provide a service as if it was a local radio station?)

Meanwhile the Artwave West Summer Exhibition continues until 11 Sept, and the "Voyages" exhibition continues at Sladers Yard, West Bay, until 12 Sept.

Bull Hotel hosts Art event launch

2010-08-25T00:44:00.009+01:00

Just a few days to the start of the Bridport Open Studios event, taking place over the Bank Holiday weekend, Sat 28 to Mon 30 August.

The new Bridport Open Studios website is now up and running, and you can find out about participating artists and download a PDF of the event.

To kick things off we've got the official launch of the event at the Bull Hotel, Bridport, on Thursday 26th August, from 6-9pm, to which everyone is invited.

We will have an exhibition called "Six by Nine" in the Ball Room, showing examples of small works from many of the participating artists. Join us for a (discounted) drink in the Vena bar, and grab a bite to eat at their award-winning restaurant or get a freshly made pizza from their Stable Cider House.

Other art events worth checking out include an exhibiton of Walker Evans photographs, part of Burr Projects at Axen Farm, on until September 5.

Here's an introduction from the Real West Dorset Blog:

"The exhibition has around 40 black and white photographs taken by Walker Evans in the Deep South of the USA in 1935-36, during the Great Depression.

Evans was employed as an Information Specialist in President Franklin D Roosevelt’s Resettlement (later Farm Security) Administration. His job was to record the work of the FSA and document the lives of farmers and flood victims.

Evans travelled to Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and South Carolina photographing sharecroppers’ homes, churches, graveyards, busy streets, shops, cafes, signs and billboards. He also took portraits.

The show is on tour from London’s Hayward Gallery. It’s accompanied by an exhibition book, with examples of Evans’ writing, interview excerpts and articles written by James Agee and Lincoln Kirstein."

Here's a further review from Bridport Radio.

Meanwhile, in Morecomblake, there's the Artwave West Summer Exhibition - Featuring work by Linda Mattock and gallery artists. It's on until 11th September, open Tuesday to Saturday 10-5pm.

Down the road in Sladers Yard there's the "Voyages" exhibition, on until Sept 12th. Artists include Simon Garden, Alfred Stockham and Stephen Jacobson paintings with David Worthington sculpture.

Of course the other major local event is the Melphash Show, taking place at the Showground, West Bay, Bridport.

The Melplash Show is the premier agricultural show in the South West and is a great day out for the whole family. One child is admitted free for each adult ticket purchased. Public opening is 7.30am to 6.00pm. This year's show welcomes celebrity Guest Valentine Warner who amongst other things will be signing copies of his popular What to Eat Now books.

Two weeks to Bridport Open Studios

2010-08-14T22:33:00.009+01:00

There's now only two weeks to go before our annual Bridport Open Studios event, which takes place from Saturday 28 to Monday 30 August 2010.

You can now view this PDF of this year's event catalogue, and it's also is available from the Bridport Open Studios page on www.bridport.org

The catalogue contains information about over 100 artists in 46 venues across West Dorset, with an image and short descriptions of their work, along with websites, telephone and email contacts.

We're still in the process of translating this information onto our new website, which you'll soon be able to find at www.bridportopenstudios.co.uk

You're also ALL invited to our launch party at the award-winning Bull Hotel, on East Street, Bridport, from 6-9pm on Thursday 26 August. Come along to have a drink and meet the artists, many of whom will be showing some examples of their works in the magnificent Ball Room. There's also freshly made pizzas and a wide range of pies and cider available from the Bull's new Stable block.

Meanwhile I've been busy working on my latest commission as well as a body of new work I've started in my studio. Last year I spent 8 months working on a commission showing a view from Lewesdon Hill across the Marshwood Vale, and this area of west Dorset has now inspired a whole new series of paintings.

A major source of inspiration has been a winding path that leads through a copice of young trees at the base of the hill, and up past a row of ancient twisted beech trees that are surrounded by bluebells in the spring. Look through these trees out across the panorama from Pilsden Pen to Charmouth Gap, a view that becomes gradually more obscured by leaves as spring turns into summer.

My landscape paintings are all about the feeling and memory of a place. I'm not in the least bit interested in the superficial appearance of a pretty scene, but in the deeper atmosphere and mood that a place evokes. Of course I love this beautiful countryside, the infinite subtleties of light and colour, as the sun begins to set over Pilsden Pen and light cascades through the canopy of entwined branches, but there seems to be a grander idyll, a sense of presence, perhaps of our forebears, and even before them, of forgotten times, somehow recorded in the soil and the rain carved hillsides.

A walk in the countryside offers a connection with nature that is both profound and sublime, and it also deserves to be savoured. Find a leafy bank to sit on, or a tree stump, and just watch the world go by. It's almost as if by relaxing and letting go of the modern world, we remember the part we play in nature, we merge back into the foliage and wildlife, and become invisible, like the hundreds of tiny animals going about their business all around us. This return to nature is something that is available to all of us, at any time, and is something we should all experience, and this is what my paintings are all about.

Of course it's different back in my studio. I sometimes work outside (plein air), but I'm quite happy to work in my studio, and with much of my work it's vital, as I spend weeks building up subtle glazes, rather than simply trying to spontaneously respond to nature. And if you think about it, every painting is really an expression of what the artist sees and feels in their mind. A landscape is always our translation of our perceptions onto canvas. I remember one visitor saying to me that she'd never seen the landscape as I showed it until she saw my paintings. I believe the same is true for all of us, that we see the world around us through the eyes of all the artists in history, we see the drama that Turner saw, the light that Monet saw, and we can find eauty in a clump of weeds because Albrecht Durer first saw it 500 years ago.

I'm hoping to show both finished works and works-in-progress at the Open Studios event, so I look forward to seeing you there.

You can view more of my work at www.kitglaisyer.com

Camping and Creative Thinking in West Dorset

2010-08-05T17:04:00.009+01:00

One of my favorite subjects for my paintings are the views across the Marshwood Vale, in the far west of Dorset, leading up to the Devon border. There's a row of three hills - Lamberts Castle, Pilsden Pen and Lewesdon Hill that lead up from the coast towards the village of Broadwindsor. You can see these three hills as you drive over the ridgeway along the A35 from Dorchester towards Bridport, and when you climb the hills themselves, you can clearly see far across towards Chesil Beach and Portland.

These three hills each have a very different feeling. To me it feels like Lewesdon was the Druid hill, as it's got a mysterious and magical feeling. Pilsden Pen feels bleaker to me, like a military stronghold, and at Lamberts Castle I can almost see the ancient settlements, a community of families, soldiers, traders and children.

It's also easy to imagine everyone sat round camp fires at night, under the stars, talking, eating, making music and dancing. What's remarkable about this is that we can have exactly the same experience today, and for sheer pleasure it still beats all our technological distractions. Frankly I'd far rather be sat round a fire with friends on a clear summers night, than watching a movie, or playing on the computer.

Anyway, there's a camp organised by a local family that takes place over a week in July, just to the west of Bridport, near Whitchurch Cannonicorum. A dozen or so families decamp to a field and set up tends, yerts and bell tents. Here's a taste of a summer evening sat round the fire...

Lovely.

Some thoughts on creativity and perception
I sometimes feel that our accomplishments in life are laid out before us like a row of choices, each leading to the next, and when we're 'in the flow', we naturally and easily glide from one to the next.

What tends to impede the flow is when we procrastinate, and avoid doing something that might not be as exciting or entertaining as we would wish. But it is only when we finally follow through with the 'natural' action that it transpires that our entire destiny was lined up beyond that event.

I had one of these moments a few days ago. I'd been wanting to rearrange my studio for a while, but could not seem to even get started. So it remained in it's current state, with paintings stacking up, as if waiting for me to resolve the situation. Meanwhile, there was a large painting on one wall that I've been working on and off for a couple of years now. I'd been thinking about the painting recently, considering the next layer, but because it was now several months since I'd touched it, I didn't feel sufficient urgency to tackle it. Finally one evening I decided to set to work on it, partly helped by some new paints I bought in Bath, which I was eager to try out. I worked on the painting for a while (Marshwood Sunburst, 72"x48"), not long, perhaps an hour or so, and then I sat down to look at it. All of a sudden it occurred to me exactly what I needed to do in order to rearrange my studio. It was a very obvious and simple change that I'd not remotely considered before, but it only happened when I got on with the task at hand.

If you imagine that everything you want to achieve is available to you, and laid out before you, then accomplishment only requires a state of 'allowing', rather than a 'plan of action'. Just look at how many people give up on their dreams because they just don't seem to get that 'lucky break' or figure out 'how' to achieve it. Perhaps those opportunities were there all along, but they were disguised as apparently ordinary decisions that they had considered and then dismissed? We have to reach an understanding that rather than working 'harder' and 'trying' to realise our dreams, perhaps these dreams are actually trying to get to us, and all we need to do is to allow our ideal life to unfold is to follow through on these simple ideas that occur to us.

This reminds me of the way that artistic progress seem to occur. It seems to be the result of a combination of very ordinary decisions, alongside the 'big' ideas. Being a successful creative person really isn't about trying to be 'amazing' every moment of the day, but instead, of trusting in the small decisions that allow us to build momentum and confidence, without being distracted by the countless rational excuses we might have.

I think that hesitation and procrastination are particular embodiments of our rational, or left-brain way of thinking. In our increasingly secular and logically/scientific society we're encouraged to explain, justify and quantify everything we do. The problem with this is that it neglects the right-brain 'intuitive' mind, and in fact many creative (and scientific) solutions are only discovered when chance has intervened, or seemingly illogical decisions have been made.

I experienced a fine example of this recently when I was looking at a couple of small recent paintings I'd made (of paths up Lewesdon Hill). They were lying next to each other on the floor, and the outer edges were obscured by furniture, so all I could see was a combination of the left side of one painting and the right of the other. The resulting configuration appeared like a new painting that I had unintentionally made - the unlikely fusion of two different projects.

As I was enjoying this 3rd painting that I'd inadvertently created, I became acutely aware of my rational mind trying to explain what I was seeing. It was obviously confused by this new discovery, and was urgently trying to tell me what was happening. If it had had the chance it would have pointed to the various parts of each painting and told me what they really were. But I didn't want to know what they were, I was too busy enjoying what they had become, and one of the greatest pleasures of being an artist is when you are pleasantly surprised by your own work.

Anyway, I managed to keep my logical brain at bay long enough to allow my creative or imaginative brain to enjoy and remember the experience, but it was my clearest indication yet of the 'yin and yang' of perception that we utilise. To function at our best we need to balance both sides of our brains, so that we can enjoy both structure and discovery.

See for yourself
There's actually a great way that we can all experience our two left/right perspectives. Have a look at this image of a spinning girl. At first she looks as if she is just spinning round and round in one direction, but then, all of a sudden you will probably see her change direction. You might think this is just a random series of clockwise and counter-clockwise rotations, but in fact there's an easy way that you can change her direction whenever you want...

Here's what you do - look at the shadow of her pointed foot at the bottom of the image. You'll notice it seems to either move from left to right or from right to left. If you just relax for a moment and watch the shadow, you can begin to see how it is actually going from right to left to right to left, a movement that corresponds to your brain also switching right to left to right to left. In order to make the girl spin clockwise you simply wait for the shadow to start moving from right to left, and then lift your eyes to see the movement continued in the spin of the girl. Likewise, to make the girl spin counter-clockwise, catch the shadow as it begins to move from left to right and then lift your eyes to see her keep spinning in that direction.

Bridport Vintage Fair, St Michael's Trading Estate (The next fair is on August 29th 2010)

2010-08-04T15:14:00.006+01:00

My appologies for not having blogged for a while, I've been so busy, though I've been meaning to post the pictures I put up from the recent Vintage Market on the St Michael's Trading Estate, Bridport.

As you probably know, there's an amazing Vintge Market that takes place on the last Sunday of the month, and the next one is on during the Bridport Open Studios weekend, on Sunday 29th August.

I went to the one in June and it was really buzzing, so I ended up staying there all day, enjoying the sunshine and taking photos.

Meanwhile the new brochures for the Bridport Open Studios 2010 (28-30 August) event have now been printed, and will be picked up by artists later this week. I'm still busy organising lots of PR and Advertising across the West Country. Our first piece is a double-page spread in this month's Dorset Magazine. Check it out!

Vintage Fair at St Michael's Trading Estate this Sunday

2010-07-24T17:48:00.009+01:00

It's all happening at Bridport's 'Art & Vintage Quarter' on the St Michael's Trading Estate.

Last night I went down to the weekly Friday night 'Pizza by the River', just down the lane from my studio. Pizza's are delicious freshly baked in the Jalopy Pizza Van, and served on wooden plates. It's becoming quite a bustling event now, and last night was the busiest I've seen it yet, with dozens of people chatting and kids playing.

Tomorrow it's the monthly Vintage Market (Sun 25th July) down there, and this has also been rapidly growing in popularity. There's a great sense of community at the market, and I imagine it must feel like it did 50 years ago, across the UK, before the awful re-development of towns started, as clueless town planners and short-sighted developers began to rip out the older quarters of our towns, driving out all these amazing grass-roots communities.

But not in Bridport! No! It's great to think that this time last year we were fighting to save the trading estate from becoming a massive housing estate, and now this entire Vintage Quarter has sprung up here. It just goes to prove what we were saying all along, that the old rope-making district of Bridport is a huge asset to the town and should be protected and appreciated as a brilliant venue for small businesses and the creative industries.

Last weekend I went to the opening of "Voyages" at Sladers Yard Gallery in West Bay. There's some great art on show, and I particularly enjoyed the highly polished sculptures by David Worthington (one of the artists in my book "Portrait of the Artist". David was actually an assistant to Anish Kapoor in the 90's, and there's definitely a 'spiritual' similarity in the work.

I met Sladers artist Alex Lowery, who's paintings brilliantly capture the bleakness of West Bay. He also shows at Art First, in Cork Street, London.

I also talked with artist Amanda Wallwork, Director at Sherborne House, and Lindsay Brookes, who has resigned from being Director of Bridport Arts Centre after three years. She's going to become a consultant instead, so I hope we get someone equally accomplished and enthusiastic to replace her.

Meanwhile I've been busy getting on with my own work, a number of landscapes including a 4-foot high commission on another view from Lewesdon Hill. It's still early days on this new body of work, as I start mapping out the foundations of the paintings, which will soon disappear under dozens of glazes of oil paint.

I'm also thinking of making a larger version of "Dorset Clouds", one of my favorite and most popular paintings showing the view from the top of Allington Hill, looking west across the Marshwood Vale towards the row of hills - Lamberts Castle, Pilsden Pen and Lewesdon Hill. It's really the skies that excite me in this project, and I want to further develop the drama from the first painting, with the sun breaking out from the thunderous clouds and rain falling in the distance, with shadows from the clouds drifting across the valley. I grew up in Dorset, so I have strong memories of how the weather influenced the light and colour and atmosphere throughout the day. The original is 4ft wide, and I'm thinking of doing one 6-8ft wide, maybe with a bigger sky...

To see more of my works visit www.kitglaisyer.com

BOS 10 + Jon Adam at Artwave West

2010-07-15T11:27:00.005+01:00

It's been a while since my last post, mainly because we've been busy preparing for the Bridport Open Studios event on the August Bank Holiday Weekend.

Once again this year there will be over 100 artists taking part, showing in 45 venues across West Dorset.

We've also got our launch night at the Bull Hotel, Bridport, so please come and join the artists in celebrating this great event!

I must also mention a great exhibition that is only on for a couple more days. It's called "New Paintings by Jon Adam & Suchi Chidambaram" at Artwave West Gallery, in Morecombelake, from 19th June - 17th July, open Tuesday to Saturday 10-5pm.

I've long been a fan of Jon Adam's paintings, so I was looking forward to this exhibition of his new work. He didn't disappoint. We often meet up and talk about our work, but Jon hadn't allowed me to see what he was working on for a few months, mainly because he just needed to get on with it without letting anyone else's opinions distract him.

The result is a body of brilliant, experiemental work, highly accomplished paintings that explore a range of ideas from the optical-abstract techniques of his "Dredger" series, to new realist paintings of the "Dark Seas".

You can see a number of these paintings on his page at the Artwave West website. I believe the show finishes on Saturday, so catch it while you can!

It's a short post this week as I've now got to get back to my own new work. I've recently started a new commission as well as a number of other works and a series of smaller paintings. I'm hoping to start posting a series of photos to show the progress of some paintings over the weeks and months... that's the plan anyway!

Painting the West Dorset landscape

2010-06-19T18:06:00.014+01:00

I've just realised that I've not talked much about my own work on this blog, so I'll now do so!

It's been such a sunny week that I've not been in the studio at all, but I've thinking a lot about how I'm going to approach my next commission, and now I'm back in the studio keen to get on with it. The size has been agreed at 42"x56" and I've already made a stretcher so as to give myself some idea of the size, possibilities and challenges of the project. I imagine the painting will take about 6 months to make, as it's a challenging piece with a great deal of complexity and subtlety involved.

My landscape paintings are all very ambitious in terms of the complexities and subtleties I want to achieve, and they require quite a different approach than my Cafe Royal paintings. The Cafe Royal is set in an 'urban' environment (in Bridport), and are concerned with architecture, surface, modernity and depicting an environment in which most things are designed and built by man, making very specific and clearly defined spaces. What I found most interesting about painting the Cafe was the variety of light effects at work, from both inside and outside the building, as well as the reflections in the wet road and the movement of the cars across them.

While the man-made landscape can appear extremely complex, nature is even more so, containing structures and patterns that are timeless and profound, spanning centuries, even millennia of history, with incredible complexities of light, the rhythms of natural forms, and the chaotic growth and interactions of the organic environment.

I would therefore almost describe my urban paintings as 'warm-up' pieces for my landscapes, where I could gain confidence in learning to achieve the sensation of light and to balance several different dynamics within the composition.

In my landscapes I want to do justice to nature, and every one of my recent series of landscape paintings has helped me to develop my confidence in tackling ever-more ambitious subjects, and to pursue ever greater subtleties of light, space, atmosphere and mood.

I want to create highly ambitious paintings that can stand alongside the great artists I admire, and this requires a combination of experience and adventure - the ability to create works that incorporate complex traditional techniques alongside an innovative contemporary edge. I also try to retain a sense of personal challenge and surprise in my work, attempting things that are new to me and that keep me on my toes, and which continue to push the boundaries of painting.

This next "Lewesdon Tree" project is based on a subject and source material that both challenges and inspires me. Since working on the "Lewesdon View" painting last year, I've continued to visit and document Lewesdon Hill, throughout the seasons, in order to try to capture moments that evoke the feelings I want to express. As I followed the landscape through winter and into spring I noted where and when the sun would set, in order to form an understanding of the dynamics of the gradually changing light and ever-growing foliage.

I'm really looking forward to making the "Lewesdon Tree" painting, as it will be the culmination of all this preparation, drawing from my experience of those 'idyllic' evenings when the light and foliage and view across the Marshwood Vale came together in perfect harmony.

Dorset Art Weeks on until this Sun 13 June

2010-06-09T17:59:00.010+01:00

The biennial Dorset Art Weeks event has been on for the past week and a half, and finishes this coming Sunday 13 June. It's a great opportunity to explore the local art scene, and there's 26 venues around the Bridport area, including several at St Michael's Studios.

I was up to London last week and caught up with my old artist friends Stuart Free & Kirsty Griffin in Wood Green. Stuart has created a fine career for himself, selling his urban landscapes from a framing shop in Crouch End, and was recently profiled in the Independent.

I also visited ex-West Bay painter Tom Katz, who is now based in Hartford, and shows in the Alexia Goethe gallery on Dover street.

I went up to London partly to get my "Portrait of the Artist" book into various art book shops, and catch a couple of exhibitions. I certainly recommend the Ged Quinn at Wilkinson, Vyner Street, on until 27 June, and Lisa Yuskavage at Greengrassi in Kennington, until 26 June. A couple more shows have opened this week that I'll try to see, first Emma Bennett at Charlie Smith Gallery on Old Street. Also, Picasso at Gagosian in Kings Cross.

It's always inspiring to see the likes of Ged Quinn and his 3 metre long canvases, though that's 10 foot, which is currently a bit long for my studio. I'll stick to 8 foot wide for now... I enjoyed Quinn's show and intend to come up to see it again before it finishes.

I also enjoyed the Lisa Yuskavage, she paints uber-feminine women, often with enlarged breasts, buttocks and an overly rich palette of pinks, creams and reds. She's a good painter, in the same school as John Currin and Inka Essenhigh, all painters who share my love of the oil medium, and I find her work enjoyable and personal. Her prices range from £60K for a tiny painting to £500K for the large.

The Greengrassi gallery is a brilliant space off the Kennington Road, and it's always inspiring to imagine my own work in there. I'm now measuring up stretchers for my next series of landscapes, and I've got a number of paintings in mind. First up I'm planning an 8'x4' Lewesdon View, slightly further up the path than the last one, late spring, with a lot more foliage making it darker and moodier. Then I've got three more views across the vale, from Dottery, Salway Ash and north Bowood, and it's just a matter of how big to make them, ideally all 8 foot ! See my work here.

We're now on the lead up to the Bridport Open Studios in November, and Philomena Harmsworth is getting into her stride as director of the event. She's got great enthusiasm, and I think that together with our dedicated team, we can take the event to new heights!

Philomena is also showing at the Little Art Gallery, Beaminster, as part of Dorset Art Weeks.

Meanwhile, sculptor Clare Trenchard is showing with other gallery artists such as painters Alex Lowery, Vanessa Gardiner and furniture maker Petter Southall, at Sladers Yard, West Bay.

The next exhibition I recommend is West Bay painter Jon Adam at Artwave West in Morecomelake, currently showing a group show of gallery artists.

2010-05-28T13:23:00.005+01:00

St Michael's May Open Studios

THIS WEEKEND

Sat 29 - Mon 31 May 2010, 10-5pm daily

Enjoy recent sketches alongside major works by Kit Glaisyer

At St Michael's Studios, Bridport.

I grew up in 'deepest darkest' Dorset, several miles from any town, so the nights were truly dark, and the stars were bright in the sky, with just the sounds of nature, the wind and rain, and the strange noises of howling animals in the surrounding woods and fields. It was an unusual and magical childhood, free of television and pop culture and politics and the rest of the modern world. I didn't know any of the TV shows that my friends watched, but I didn't miss them either, because together we'd explore the world of trees and streams, in sun and rain and snow, as hunters and adventurers, and we felt like we had discovered something that the rest of the world had forgotten.

After school I went to London, in order to find like-minds and create a career as an artist. I loved the energy and excitement of the city, it introduced me to great art, and gave me a sense of the development of art and culture over the centuries. It also inspired my first serious works - an ambitious series of abstract paintings, through which I found my voice and developed my own language of expression.

But after a few years, and despite all of these amazing encounters and adventures, I began to miss the feeling of nature surrounding me, along with the deep sense of the sublime it inspires. And one day, while on holiday in Dorset I was introduced to an artistic community in Symondsbury, just outside Bridport, and within a month I'd moved back to live in the countryside. The following year I started a new studio in an empty warehouse on an old rope-making estate in Bridport, and St Michael's Studios has now grown to become one of the most vibrant art venues in the West County. Our Open Studio events have become very popular, and I find it's a great way for me to share my work, as it allows visitors to experience the gradual evolution of my paintings over several months.

My recent series of landscape paintings are inspired by the landscape of west Dorset, particularly around the Marshwood Vale, and they are intended as a contemporary update on the historic tradition of landscape painting. While I love the work of the Impressionists and Expressionism, I feel that these styles ultimately led to the idea that anyone could make a painting, and so much of what we see now seems so lazy and stylised. I've followed a different path, one closer to post-impressionist Paul Cézanne, who left Paris to go and live in rural France and painted around Montagne Sainte-Victoire for the next 25 years. He said he wanted "to make of impressionism something solid and lasting like the art in the museums", and desired to unite observation of nature with the permanence of classical composition. Cezanne's dogged pursuit of these principles led to the birth of Modern Art.

I also return to the examples set by the great masters, who all demonstrated this conviction to a personal vision, also evident in the great works of the British artists JMW Turner and John Constable, who were in turn inspired by the Dutch 17th Century painters like Jacob van Ruisdael and Filips Koninck - some of the first painters to establish Landscape as an independent genre. Turner and Constable were associated with Romanticism - the complex artistic, literary, and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th Century and included artists such as Caspar David Friedrich, Eugène Delacroix and William Blake. It also inspired the Hudson River painters, a mid-19th century American art movement of landscape painters that included Jasper Francis Cropsey, Thomas Cole, Albert Bierstadt and Frederic Edwin Church.

One thing all these artists shared is a deep respect for nature, and a determination to do justice to the subject. They all set out to achieve very ambitious paintings, requiring many months or even years of work, as well as the development of accomplished new painting techniques, and that's also the way I like to work these days - gaining confidence as I tackle ever more complex subjects.

I now feel like I'm beginning to do justice to my feelings for nature. I've learnt the necessary patience required to give my work the time it needs in order to capture the intricate subtleties of light and atmosphere, and to honour the incredible complexity and rhythm of this ancient landscape.

I look forward to showing you my latest works, and taking you on an emotional journey into the heart of the countryside.

Kit Glaisyer, May 2010

Please visit my website, explore the Artistic Quarter of Bridport, discover more of the Bridport art scene, and read about it in my recently published book "Portrait of the Artist".

Busy in Bridport

2010-05-15T15:20:00.005+01:00

Never a quiet moment in Bridport!

Artists Invited to join BOS 2010

There's been some uncertainly about who would run Bridport Open Studios this year as Jaki Rabbetts decided to stand down after 5 years, but now artist Philomena Harmsworth has taken over. The event takes place over the three days of the August Bank Holiday, but this week is a crucial time as this is when we send out the Artist Entry Forms.

Because of the leadership transition I've been helping out with the BOS 2010 Entry Forms, and Philomena finally sent them out this evening. If you're an artist based within about 10 miles of Bridport and would like to take part in the event but haven't received an application form, please email philomena@philomenaharmsworth.com

"Portrait of the Artist" Exhibition down, Book still up!

I had mixed feelings when I took down the "Portrait of the Artist" exhibition from the Bridport Arts Centre last week. It's been a really popular show, and I love to get my work out there, but of course this exhibition and book have been very time consuming for me, so I'm happy to be back in the studio painting again.

We're also really pleased that the 1st edition of the book sold out within the first week of the show, so now we're onto the 2nd edition. I'm still working to get the book out into the bookshops, and I'll be taking some copies up to London soon.

What's On?

Exhibition wise you'll find "Coming of Age: South West Textile Group" at the Bridport Arts Centre

Members have contributed new work from an idea that challenges either, or both, the maker and the viewer. The starting point for all makers, from embroiderers, feltmakers, papermakers, printers to weavers, may have been the same, but as can be seen in the varied nature of this exhibition, the end results show a wide interpretation and a stimulating spectacle which should appeal to the whole family.

Visit this exhibition in the Allsop Gallery daily, Tuesday to Saturday, 10am to 4pm.

At Sladers Yard, West Bay you can see work by Julian Bailey, Vanessa Gardiner, Alex Lowery, Clare Trenchard and Petter Southall.

And 9 gallery artists are showing at Artwave West in Morecomblake.

Art Inspiration

I've been indulging in some online exhibition viewings via YouTube, and I've collected a selection of them for you to browse. First up are several New York artists I particularly admire -

Inka Essenhigh opening
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3XUKJ4ro3M&feature=related

Lisa Yuskavage opening
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0HBpW_9RTM&feature=related

Dana Shultz exhibition opening
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F59L4OJfRQ4

Dana Shultz interview
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzRUMRv7mAs&feature=related

Then some British artists -

Peter Doig Tate Britain Retrospective
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7174WN_5kUQ&feature=related

at Gavin Brown (New York)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTrPokQd8Jg&feature=related

Damian Hirst interview
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHbAHyECYpY&feature=related

Chapman Brother's interview
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QeNatsDV4I&feature=related

And the old school -

Francis Bacon interview
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x10BjZa-lyk&feature=related

Francis Bacon 50 minute interview (1/5)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5sBhaAYJRs&feature=related

(Rare) Lucien Freud 50 minute interview (1/5)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3D_euSA7ryg&feature=related

Balthus hour long documentary (1/6)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzjmpIMQDhI&feature=related

Packed launch night for "Portrait of the Artist" at Bridport Arts Centre

2010-05-01T22:46:00.004+01:00

Wow, what a week!

First up I've got to mention that we've got an Open Studios event on this weekend at St Michael's Studios. It's already started and continues until Mon 3rd May, 5pm, so come along if you can! As always, it's a great opportunity to meet the artists and see works in progress, as well as buy or commission new work. You can find the address of St Michael's Studios on my website www.kitglaisyer.com

Anyway, I put up the exhibition for "Portrait of the Artist" at the Bridport Arts Centre, last week, helped by fellow artist Jollyon Carter. It was quite a challenging hang, as we had to show works by 23 diverse artists, and I asked Jolly to help because I knew he would complement my approach, bringing his own New York sensibility to inform the layout. It was a good combination, with my more conservative thematic perspective and Jolly's more abstract and contrasting approach.

The launch night on Saturday 17th was totally packed, and George (the photographer), Lu (the writer) and I were kept busy signing copies of the book and talking to everyone. Good old John Hubbard formerly introduced the project shortly after 7pm. It was a fantastic evening, so thanks to everyone who came!

I'm happy to say that we also sold out of the 1st edition of the book within the 1st week, so we're now onto the 2nd edition. You can order your copy online at our "Portrait of the Artist" Book website.

The exhibition has proved to be really popular and goes on for another couple of weeks, until Tues 11 May. My personal favourite pieces are the amazing new sculptures by David Risk Kennard. I really can't do them justice in words, just to say that they're strongly emotional figurative pieces cut from blocks of wood. I really recommend you go and see them.

There are also sculptural pieces by Greta Berlin, Ian Middleton, Andrew Whittle, David Worthington and Dan Bendel. Thinking of these pieces makes me realise that I'll have to come back in a couple of days and write a more in depth review of the exhibition, as there are many pieces I should mention.

The rest of the pieces are paintings and drawings from full on abstracts by the likes of Ian Dunn and Jollyon, to figurative pieces by Andrew Leppard and John Rabbetts, and of course landscapes by the likes of myself and Gerry Dudgeon.

St Michael's Open Studios runs until 5pm on Mon 3rd May.

"Portrait of the Artist" exhibition at the Bridport Arts Centre, runs until Tues 11 May.

The book "Portrait of the Artist - 25 Bridport Painters & Sculptors" is available for £19.95 from our website, also at the Bridport Arts Centre and from St Michael's Studios. It will also be available at all good book shops from next week.

Portrait of the Artist gone to press

2010-04-09T20:32:00.010+01:00

Our book "Portrait of the Artist - 25 Bridport Painters & Sculptors" went to press yesterday, and will be offically launched by artist John Hubbard at 7pm at the Private View of the exhibition at the Bridport Arts Centre, 6-8pm next Saturday 17th April.

The book is now available for £19.95 from all good book shops. You can also order the book online from the our website.

"Portrait of the Artist" Exhibition

I will be putting up the exhibition of "Portrait of the Artist" next week and it will run from Sat 17 April to Tues 11 May. The Allsop Gallery is open Tuesday to Saturday, 10am-4pm.

It's been an intense process to create the book in just over 3 months, but I'm actually glad we had this deadline because now I can get on with my painting again!

I'm also looking forward to visiting London to see some recent exhibitions, such as Richard Hamilton at the Serpentine, Eberhard Havekost at While Cube, and I'm liking the look of two new paintings by Christopher Stevens at Mummery + Schnelle Gallery.

Online I'm loving the amazing double self-portraits by Kelli Connell (made with double exposures) and the incredible trompe-loeil works by Kirk Hayes ('trompe-l'oeil' is a style of painting that gives an illusion of photographic reality).

Meanwhile I'm still enjoying paintings by Jean-Pierre Roy, Inka Essenhigh, George Shaw and Ged Quinn.

See you at the opening!

Visit www.bridport.org for more information about the Bridport art scene.

Easter Open event at St Michael's Studios, Bridport

2010-04-03T21:10:00.003+01:00

Easter Open event at St Michael's Studios, 2 to 5 April, 10-5pm daily

We're putting on our annual Easter Open Studios event over the 4 days of the Easter Bank Holiday, and many of the artists at St Michael's Studios will be opening their studios to the public.

I'll also be unveiling my latest commission "View from Lewesdon Hill" during the open event. The painting is on temporary loan from the new owner, and as I've spent 6 months making it, I wanted to give the public another opportunity to see it.

The painting is one of a series of panoramic landscape paintings inspired by the unique light and landscape of West Dorset, it's a five-foot painting, showing a vista across the Marshwood Vale from Pilsden Pen to Charmouth, framed by the ancient beech trees on the lower part of Lewesdon Hill, itself an iron age hill fort and the highest point in Dorset.

Also taking place from this weekend are two exhibitions by two artists based at St Michael's Studios. Andrew Leppard and John Rabbetts have a two-man show at Eype Centre of the Arts, which is on from Good Friday April 2nd for one week until Sunday April 11th and will be open from 10.30am until 4.30pm. Admission is free.

Also well worth a look is a solo show by John Rabbetts at the White Space Gallery in Axminster, from April 2nd- 11th April 2010.

"John Rabbetts' vibrant oil paintings are appreciated for their mood and atmosphere. He has a strong sense of the nuances of light and a rare talent for capturing expression and movement. John explores a wide range of subjects, from portraits, to landscapes, interiors and exteriors, and has created a versatile stylistic approach appropriated from artists throughout the history of painting. He tends to work quickly, challenging himself to capture the likeness of an image or accomplish a painterly effect. Working from found and personal images, both photographic and painted, John relishes the activity of painting, pitting himself against the masters, determined to match their virtuosity and enjoying the sheer pleasure of the painters touch."

Meanwhile, artist Tim Nickolson is showing at Sladers Yard Gallery, West Bay, from 28 March to 16 May.

"This is a rare chance to see the joyous colours and irrepressible style of Tim Nicholson's paintings. Tim plays with the idea of representation with a sure hand and a great sense of fun. Every day objects are transformed into jewels, flattened and yet bursting with life. His landscapes may have writing on them as if he has painted them by numbers. Dots and stripes speak of pattern yet the picture leaps out.

Tim Nicholson is the nephew of Ben Nicholson, son of Kit and EQ whose prints play a strong part in the exhibition. Designed in the forties and fifties in the midst of the radical thinking which was the seed for many of the ideas behind the contemporary work in this exhibition, EQ's designs are still fresh and strong today. Known primarily for her textile designs, EQ's paintings were only discovered by friends late in her life. Simplifying and stylising every day objects, they reveal a clear and wonderful talent.

Sladers Yard is an eighteenth century maritime warehouse at West Bay harbour in West Dorset. The original three-storey timber interior of Sladers Yard speaks of its 250-year history as a workplace. Everywhere are the marks of the past: grooves worn by ropes or great bolts driven into the rough stone walls. With its mottled lime-washed walls and rough-hewn pillars, the building makes a stunning setting for contemporary work.

Along the road in Morecomblake, the Artwave West Gallery has it's Easter exhibition, with a dozen artists showing from 12th March - 24th April 2010.

Next up will be the launch of my "Portrait of the Artist" book and exhibition at the Bridport Arts Centre on Saturday 17th April, from 6-8pm. This is a group show of twenty-five painters and sculptors associated with the Bridport art scene, and includes the launch of the book on the opening night. The project is a collaboration between myself writer Lu Orza and photographer George Wright, and we each draw on our own creative disciples to present a multifaceted portrait of the contemporary artist, with Lu's narrative texts, George's evocative photographic portraits and my selection of some of the artists best work.

Happy Easter!

Portrait book nearly there...

2010-03-19T00:00:00.002Z

(Pic: Jollyon Carter, from "Portrait of the Artist", published 17 April 2010)

I've spent another week working with photographer George Wright on the final edits of our book "Portrait of the Artist". We're extremely happy with the results so far and it feels like the book is gets pretty close to 'vibe' of the Bridport art scene.

I started working with George a couple of years back, when we made a series of adverts for the Art Review magazine - which covers 'high-brow' contemporary art in a very accessible way. I'd read the magazine for years, and I realised that having an elegant advert there might be a good way of raising the art-world profile of the Bridport art scene.

I was recommended George by an artist friend and realised that he had actually won the Bridport Open Art exhibition a couple of years back with a beautiful photographic print of an oak tree, which he'd lit artificially at night. He has also had hundreds of photographs featured in magazines, particularly profiles of well known figures, and he has made a collection of these into an eye-catching book called "Some People I've Met".

I only had a small budget to work with as the Art Review project was only funded by the participating artists, but I managed to negotiate a really good deal with George, and we set out on an ambitious 24 artist shoot, over 2 days!

I was immediately impressed by George's energy and his ability to put the subjects at ease. George has obviously got used to working with all types of people and is expert at finding elements of their environment to frame them in a subtlety theatrical manner. His work brings out the romance and drama of the subject, whether they are an office worker or Royalty, and this makes his work particularly suitable for artists, who tend to create a richly evocative working space around them.

When I started working with George I was, like many artists, quite shy about being photographed, but now I relish the opportunity! Once you realise that having your photograph taken is a form of performance then you can simply enjoy being a larger version of yourself.

The "Portrait" artist who understood this best was undoubtedly Jollyon Carter. Recently back from studying in New York, and really loving his ragged studio on the St Michael's Trading Estate, Jollyon launched himself into the photo-shoot with abandon. He realised that a book can be used as an extension of the means an artist uses to engage with the viewer, and he came up with some crazy ideas. He and his partner Niko have also brought a great new, young, NY energy to the trading estate... I'm sure we'll be seeing a lot more of them over the next few months.

What I'm enjoying most about the book is how accurately it reflects the amazingly diverse nature of the Bridport art scene. There certainly isn't a Bridport style or consensus approach, instead there's a powerful feeling of individuality and personal exploration. Isn't this refreshing in a world where everyone seems so keen to satisfy the arbiters of taste?

For instance, in the art world, most young artists seem to want to create work just to impress Charles Saatchi! They think that if they can convince him to buy their work then their career is made. And it's true that most of the artists he collects get an immediate boost in the art world, with other collectors jumping on the band-wagon and often a gallery or two. But unfortunately look at their career a few years down the line, and it appears that it might have been more trouble than it was worth, as the next 'hot' artist replaces them.

What Saatchi does is a bit like an art world version of Divide and Rule, because by adding the artist to his collection it tends to elevate the artist above his peers/friends and therefore severs the vital links that artists have with each other - which act likes roots on a tree, drawing in sustenance and refreshment.

This is one of the great things about the Bridport art scene, and why this is the best time to be involved with it. There's now a growing community of artists to engage with and still a strong sense of solidarity. I think the Open Studios events are what has done most for the local artists, because these events leave it up to the visitor to discover what is good, rather than relying on the tastes set by one or two galleries.

Of course I'm not against Saatchi or Galleries, far from it, I want to keep raising our profile so that more and more collectors and galleries discover Bridport and invest in our artists, and that's a big part of why I'm doing this book. But that's the key phrase, isn't it? INVEST in the artist. When artists are enabled to get on with creating their best work, and when the Galleries and Collectors of the art world remember that the artist comes first, that is when the greatest art is made.

The reason I'm such a big fan of the Open Studio events in Bridport is that they've enabled me to produce the work I really want to do - incredibly ambitious paintings that often take months to create. So, rather than repeating my most popular pieces, or producing work to the tastes of a gallery, I focus entirely on the work that I feel needs to be made. And at the Open events I wait for those who really respond to my work and are willing to invest in what is coming next. I've noticed that a similar thing has happened in art history. Artists from Rembrandt to Hirst have relied on the patronage of open minded collectors at crucial times in their careers.

Doing this book has been an excellent way to start the year, and I think this is a very exciting time, particularly for those willing to buy into some of our relatively unknown artists. It's obvious that Bridport is going to produce several art stars in the months and years ahead, but these are going to be remembered as the best times!

For more information on the Bridport art scene, visit www.bridport.org and for examples of my own work visit www.kitglaisyer.com.

2010-03-06T22:49:00.003Z

The "Portrait of the Artist" project is coming along well. We've interviewed and photographed all 25 artists that are taking part, and we're now gathering examples of each artists work for the two pages they each have in the book.

We've also started to lay out the book, so that it's ready to be printed in a week or so. The book doesn't have to be ready until the week of the launch on Saturday 17 April, but we want to get a draft copy printed, and then make sure the 1st edition is delivered with plenty of time to spare.

I'm also beginning to think about the exhibition at the Bridport Arts Centre. About 8 of the artists will be showing sculptural pieces, and then there are 17 painters. I'll be visiting all of the artists before April to discuss what they want to show.

I like to keep myself continually inspired, here are some of the sites that keep me on my toes:

KultureFlash is a weekly guide to the arts in the UK.

AVATAR Director James Cameron on the incredible TED lectures website.

J K Rowlings brilliant Harvard speech on the Fringe Benefits of Failure.

I came across this extraordinary clip on YouTube, of an elephant painting!

Most recent work from Olafur Eliasson (he made the amazing Weather Project at Tate Modern).

Flavorwire is a cool US based Blog that covers the arts.

Finally, I hope you've all got your fingers crossed for The Hurt Locker at the Oscars, local man Ray Beckett has already won a Bafta for Best Sound on the film.

2010-02-22T17:53:00.003Z

I've finally completed my latest commission, View from Leweston Hill. It's always really intense at the end, all those hundreds of tiny decisions that have to be made. Of course, the underlying atmosphere of the painting is achieved with a very different approach, as I slowly build up the composition and colours over several months. I feel this is the only way to do justice to the sense of ancient time, or even timelessness, that the landscape evokes. The forms of the land have taken millennia to evolve, while the light and colour is constantly changing.

Portrait of the Artist - Book & Exhibition
I've also been busy on a project called "Portrait of the Artist", with the publication of a book and a group show at the Bridport Arts Centre, from April 17 to May 10 2010. This follows on from the 'studio portraits' that I commissioned photographer George Wright to start taking of local artists in Autumn 2008.

There are now dozens of artists working in the wider Bridport area of West Dorset, but for this 1st book we've had to focus on just 25 artists. Alongside Georges photos they'll be a page of text by local writer Lu Orza, who has had the ambitious task of interviewing all the artists, and writing up a subjective 'portrait'. I love her writing, she's invented an original and incisive way of writing about artists, and it's a very refreshing alternative to the usual press-release-style writing we see so often (that just tells you how wonderful they are, without revealing anything about them).

Sladers Yard
Earthscapes: 8 Wessex Artists 14 February - 21 March,
Wednesday - Saturday 10 - 3pm, Sundays 12 - 4pm.
Landscape and what lies beneath; what came before; where we go from here.
John Hubbard, Brian Graham, Malcolm Ashman, Paul Jones, Andrew George, Peter Ursem, Michael Williams, Gerry Dudgeon.
Brian Graham Talk: Thursday 4 March, 7pm. Tickets: £5 from Sladers Yard.
www.sladersyard.co.uk / 01308 459511.

Artwave West
Four Gallery Artists
6th February - 6th March 2010
Martin Goold, Kathy Ramsay Carr, Boo Mallinson and Sonia Stanyard
Wednesday to Saturday, 10.00am to 4.00pm.
www.artwavewest.com / 01297 489 746

View from Leweston nearly there...

2010-02-01T23:34:00.004Z

I'm now coming towards the end of a painting that's been about seven months in the making. It's a view from Leweston Hill, on the Dorset / Devon border, looking south west across the Marshwood Vale and towards Pilsden Pen.

I find the completion of these landscape paintings to be a very intense process. The way I work on a landscape means that I allow it lots of time to evolve and develop, so I can contemplate how the painting feels and allow dozens of subtle relationships to occur. However, when the painting is almost finished it requires a far more dynamic interaction and hundreds of painterly decisions as I resolve, clarify, articulate and realise the final crucial ingredients.

Why do I make it so hard for myself? I just love what a painting can achieve. There's simply no other medium that can come close to the mystery and beguiling presence of a painting. I love great films, but there's no film I'd want to watch every day, where-as I'd be more than happy to live with a great painting, and see something fresh in it every day.

The reason that I now spend several months on my landscape paintings is that I want to invest them with a complexity that will last centuries. Of course I'm talking here about the complexity of experience, rather than detail. I can go outside now and walk up Allington Hill and look across the landscape, and in that moment I'll feel the same sense of wonder that I did as a boy.

This is why I don't paint 'abstract' landscapes, or those loose/geometric/expressive paintings I see so often; I simply don't believe those technique can do justice to what I see and feel. Making a great painting is a bit like living with someone, and getting to know them over time. The first impression when we meet someone is interesting of course, but you only really get to understand them as you see them responding to life, and their true character gradually emerges.

Please support us at the Inquiry!

2010-01-17T01:05:00.005Z

A Happy New Year!

Planning Enquiry
In a couple of weeks there will be an inquiry into the controversial (and extremely unpopular) plans to redevelop the St Michael's Trading Estate. The proposers of the plan are appealing the decision by the West Dorset Planning Committee to reject their proposals (twice).

Their redevelopment proposals would spell the end of St Michael's Studios and threaten the jobs of over 200 people who work on the trading estate, thereby destroying this vibrant industrial park and the community who work there, and replacing it with a massive (unwanted) housing development.

Why are they trying to get these plans through? Because the whole site is currently designated as an industrial park, and if it receives residential planning approval then the land would immediately triple in value! If that happened it would immediately be sold to developers...

The inquiry takes place at Parkdean in West Bay, from 10am on Tues 26 January 2010.

I'd like to invite EVERYONE to come along to the 1st day of the inquiry, as it's important that we show the inspector the strength of feeling in Bridport about our future.

For more information about this issue please visit the Real West Dorset website.

Forthcoming Book and Exhibition - "Portrait of the Artist"
I've had a busy start to the New Year organising a series of interviews between local artists and writer Lu Orza, for a book we're publishing in April called "Portrait of the Artist", that will also feature photographs by George Wright. This will tie in with an exhibition at the Bridport Arts Centre of works from many artists at the forefront of our vibrant art scene.

Panoramic Landscape
I've been working on an ambitious landscape panorama called "View from Leweston Hill", which has a view from the lower part of the hill looking west across the Marshwood Vale towards Pilsden Pen and the sea. It's a private commission, but I'm planning on having a public unveiling of the work once it's finished...

A Community in Action
The best thing to come out of these controversial redevelopment plans is that it's brought together many local people from the community and reminded us that by working together we can exercise true democracy and direct the future of the town in the interests of those who live here.

It's heartening to see such effective collaboration between the Bridport Town Council, the Chamber of Trade, the Environmental Group, the CPRE, the artistic community and hundreds of local people who together make up the vibrant Bridport community.

For a long time it felt like Bridport had managed to stay under the radar and remain safe from the drastic redevelopment projects that have done so much damage to so many towns across the country. But in recent years a number of demolitions and developments took place that made it quite clear that important decisions about Bridport were been taken by people with no interest or understanding of the unique character of our town.

The problem seemed to be that planning decisions for Bridport are made by the Planning Committee of the West Dorset District Council, which is based in Dorchester. While Dorchester is a beautiful country town, it is markedly different from Bridport, both in terms of it's community and the economics that sustain it.

Hopefully by now it's becoming obvious to the WDDC that we need to allow Bridport's elected Council to decide on how we develop our town in the future, and in fact this St Michael's controversy has revealed that we have a vast resource of intelligent and motivated people who are very capable of making these decisions.

I'd go so far as to say that the way in which Bridport people have come together over this issue is one of the greatest example I've ever seen of true democracy in action. It's actually inspiring to attend a meeting where councillors and local people are working together to resolve these issues in the interests of the town. Local people no longer simply expect our councillors to do everything, but we are all taking responsibility for what we can do to help. This has led to a growing respect for local Councillors such as Dave Rickard, Charles Wilde and Ross Kayes, who are so obviously working with us for the greater good of the town.

Investing in Contemporary Art

2009-10-01T01:51:00.014+01:00

The week-long November Open Studios event has just started, running from Sat 14 to the following Sun 22 Nov, so it seems like a good time to talk about Investing in Contemporary Art.

Art and Money are two distinct subjects that have a crucial relationship when it comes to the artist creating their best work and the collector making the best investment.

Notice that I place the creation of great art first and I didn't say "the collector getting the best bargain". The truth is that if you manage to negotiate a 'bargain' from an artist then you've probably done both of you a disservice, because the artist will soon be worrying about money again and therefore not be in a position to make their best art (and develop their career) and this will diminish rather than increase the value of your investment.

I've got a very simple formula if you want to make a great investment in art:

Find Talented Artist + Put Money in their bank = They get Peace of Mind + Focus on creativity

So first you find a good artist, and look for someone with real talent, not just affordable prices. Visit Open Studio events and Gallery shows, read Art Magazines and explore online. Once you've found a talented artist give them the money they're asking for, so they no longer have to worry about paying the bills and can simply focus on their creativity. Most artists are willing to negotiate on price, but remember that your money is literally going to pay for their development - offer them too little and soon they'll have to waste time and energy chasing the next sale.

Part of the problem these days is that many people spend most of their time looking for 'bargains' and therefore miss excellent opportunities to invest in something truly great.

The only things I regret in my career as an artist are the times when I've sold my work too cheaply. It annoys me because I know that the buyer has greatly benefited while lengthening the times I was struggling. But I'm also aware of how lucky they are to have bought MY work because most artists who don't ask for what they really need eventually have to stop making art altogether.

I know the Art market pretty well now, and I can recommend several artists you could buy as a good investment. These are artists who are all very talented, will continue to grow in ability and have the right attitude to becoming very successful in the future. Their work ranges in price from a few hundred to tens of thousands of pounds, so there is a market for everyone.

What most people don't realise is how easy it is for the buyer to help make an artist successful, as a relatively small investment can do wonders for an artists career and greatly increase the value of your investment in them.

The most visible example of this strategy is Charles Saatchi, who basically buys art when it's relatively inexpensive (though he always pays enough to help finance that artists development ) then exhibits the work, which raises it's value, and eventually sells those works that have become the most valuable. A great example of this is with the artist Jenny Saville, as he purchased her entire post-graduate show and then commissioned her paintings for the next two years. She is now represented by the Gagosian Gallery, alongside the most successful artists in the world.

The most effective dealers and galleries understand that the best investment strategy is simple to find talented artists and then finance their development. This process often continues throughout the artists career, as when dealers bid for their own artists at auctions simply in order to maintain and raise their value. For instance, last autumn, at a time when the value of Damien Hirst's work was beginning to fall, his dealers were the 'under-bidders' on more than half of the works at his "Beautiful inside my head forever" auction.

The ability to literally create an artists career and then develop their market is only possible because the art market is relatively small - so you certainly don't need the resources of Saatchi or Jay Joplin to work this magic!

I can think of several artists where you would only need an an investment of between £4,000 to £10,000 to make a significant difference to their progress. A timely purchase or commission can literally kick-start an artists career. The reason is obvious when you think about it: an artist is only really concerned about one thing - focusing on making their best work - so the easier you can make it for them to do that, the more progress they'll make.

I know that to some people the prices I quote here will seem quite high, especially when you can buy so-called 'art' for a few hundred pounds, but I'm talking about what you need to spend in order to make a serious investment. I'm not talking about all those jobbing 'artists' out there who just churn out 'pretty art', I'm talking about serious practitioners who have made the commitment to dedicate their lives to creating meaningful art.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that buying art is much more fun and profitable (for everyone) if you know you've helped a genuinely talented artist to further their career.

The other thing you need to do is to avoid buying 'bad' art. There's a lot of bad art about these days because it seems that everyone thinks they're an artist, and galleries just want to make money! Many mediocre artists get away with making lazy and derivative work simply by calling it Conceptual or Post-modern or Impressionistic or Abstract, and Galleries have learnt that they can basically just tell us what we should think about their art.

Most artists fancy themselves as being talented (particularly when we start) but we all need to get honest feedback about our work from our peers. One of the things I enjoyed about Art College is that we had to explain and discuss our work with other artists, so you couldn't simply tell people how great you were and rely on their ignorance to get away with it.

In the Art World it's equally important for artists to get feedback from other artists, and for potential buyers to discover what an artists reputation is among their peers. If you ask artists what they think of other artists you'll very quickly be able to tell what think of each other!

Basically though, if you cut through all the waffle and just look for talent, it's relatively easy to find brilliant artists worth investing it. And believe me, they need your support. Being an artist is one of the most challenging professions you can choose, artists sacrifice many things that most people take for granted, and we have to commit to something that has no guarantee of success.

Great artists have always needed patrons, from Rembrandt to Turner, and Picasso to Hirst. And it's their best patrons who amassed the greatest collections and had the most success. Many are still remembered as being instrumental in helping those artists at key points in their development. For instance, Picasso had Ambroise Vollard and Matissa had Sergei Shchukin .

Now-a-days you don't even have to be wealthy to be a patron. For instance, a New York couple, the Vogels have created one of the greatest collections of modern and contemporary art in the world, even though Herb was a postal clerk and his wife Dorothy, a Librarian.

If you're reading this I presume it's because you're interested in art. Well, we've got a thriving art scene happening in Bridport and you've got the opportunity to seek out several extremely talented artists here this week. So I recommend you come down, look around for some great art, and start investing now! Just make sure you visit me at St Michael's Studios...

The Bridport November Open Studios runs from Sat 14 to Sun 22 Nov, standard opening times are 10-5pm. Visit the Open Studios page at www.bridport.org to download a Map of the event.

Autumnal Painting

2009-09-29T17:53:00.009+01:00

I've been having a busy time, and I've not been adding to this blog as often as I'd like, so I'm going to attempt to write this Blog more like a diary - time permitting. Hopefully it will give an idea of the 'bigger picture' of my life as an artist, including my personal projects, insights into some of the artists involved in the Bridport Art Scene, my experience of our Open events, what is happening at St Michael's Studios and on the St Michael's Trading Estate, and my thoughts about many artists I admire, as well as my own intentions for the future of the Art World.

I must say that after a really busy summer, I've been enjoying having a quieter autumn. One of the things I love about living in Bridport is how everything calms down after the tourist season. The local community is still buzzing around and all the locals are out and about, but everything feels more relaxed. I was out in the sun this afternoon and I bumped into a friend who has recently moved here from London. He still hasn't got his head around how laid back every one is down here, but that's one of the joys of Bridport. In London the energy can be really good because it motivates everyone, whereas in the country the energy is at a more 'natural' pace, so you really have to motivate yourself, but it's easy once you get the hang of it.

For the last couple of weeks I've been working on a life-size Drip Figure of a local woman. I just completed the second layer last night, and the painting is now drying flat on it's back. I use a very unpredictable technique for making my drip figures, so it's all about preparation and then working with paint that is literally falling off the canvas. The chaos involved in the process means that the results are always surprising, and this one is no exception.

My drip figures are really about creating the 'presence' of a person, and the drip techniques I use mean that the image has a sense of movement and transience, just as our bodies are never quite still, and changing from moment to moment. I also like the way that my drip figures confront the viewer rather than being purely voyeuristic in character.

Now that I've done the second layer I've got to wait a few days for it to dry before doing the third layer, and my thoughts have gone back to my landscape painting 'view from Leweston Hill'. I haven't touched the canvas today, as it's actually quite difficult to switch back and forth between my drip figures and landscapes ( since there's a very different dynamic involved in each of them) but I've been working out what to do when I get back to it.

The Leweston Hill painting is based on the view from the third in the long range of three hills that I've been painting that runs from Lamberts Castle (near Hawkchurch), through Pilsden Pen (near Marshwood) to Leweston (near Broadwindsor). It's an amazing hill, the highest in the region, and has a magical feel to it.

I'm painting these landscapes because I feel a deep emotional connection to the Dorset countryside. I grew up in North Dorset, next to a farm in the middle of nowhere, so my appreciation of nature feels very natural. Now that I've been to London and moved back to Dorset, my love of the landscape continues to grow. I have a great admiration for many landscape painters, particularly the pioneers of the genre - 16th Century Dutch painters like Ruisdael and De Koninck, as well as Turner, Constable, the Hudson River painters, and the great Romantic painters like Casper Friedrich, the Barbizon painters, and of course Cezanne. However, I've yet to see the landscape painted quite the way I feel and experience it, and so that is what I am going to do.

BOS 09

2009-09-08T22:03:00.007+01:00

"Marshwood Clouds", oil on canvas, 48"x22", 2007-8

This year's Bridport Open Studios event was by far the busiest we've had, with about 750 visitors to St Michael's Studios over the three days. We were also featured on BBC Spotlight and Radio Solent, and had lots of features on us in magazines and newspapers.

It's been amazing for all of us to experience the growth of the Bridport Art Scene over the past few years. It's been a very organic process, led by the artists, and supported by both local people and keen collectors from across the country.

We also have to work very hard, both to maintain our visibility in the media and also to keep raising the standard of our work and justify the reputation of our art scene.

I also love the Open Studios events because this format has allowed me to focus on making the best work I'm capable of, rather than feeling compromised by the commercial requirements and time constraints of galleries and art fairs.

I now dedicate myself to realising my most ambitious ideas, working on most paintings for at least six months and often for over a year. When you look back at the great painters throughout history, you see incredibly accomplished works that would have taken months to achieve, and I now want to do the same. I want to create art that can stand beside the masters, works that demand my greatest skill and dedication, and paintings that push Art to the next level.

I've also become a lot more critical of much of the 'lazy' painting I see around. These are often mediocre artists who have been promoted by galleries who don't know any better, and encourage the idea that 'anyone can be an artist'. What rubbish, that's like saying that anyone can be a concert pianist - of course you can - if you practise for 10,000+ hours!

However, I've also noticed a gradual return to highly accomplished art works, both from artist friends that I respect and also many internationally recognised artists. I regularly go to London to experience the best art being made today from the likes of Glenn Brown, John Currin, Inka Essenhigh, Nigel Cooke, Ged Quinn, George Shaw and Peter Doig. These are all artists who create powerful and pioneering art, and they're not artists that need a gallery to explain or justify their work.

The Art Market is a strange entity because anyone with some money can establish their own gallery and claim to be an expert on contemporary art. This means that there are just a few very good galleries that do a brilliant job in promoting their artists, and then many bad galleries that treat their artists like an unruly production line.

The worst example of this is the awful Affordable Art Fair, that presents itself as a way to get contemporary art for a low price, but does so at the expense of the artists. The truth is that if you want to get good quality contemporary art that will continue to rise in value, then you have to find a way to support the artist, rather than buying from a low-price venue.

The fact is that you should never try to get a 'bargain' from an emerging artist, because it means you're depriving them of the means to make the work they're capable of. If you want to make a good investment in art, then you must invest in the artist, because the strength of their market will depend entirely on the quality and development of their work.

The ideal position to hold is as a Patron, which is something that all great artists have needed throughout history. A Patron is simple someone who is willing to believe in the artist and fund their work, and they also turn out to build the best collections of art because they fund the artists when they're creating their best and most pioneering works.

The Art Market is changing, and in Bridport we're doing our bit to bring the focus back to the artists, to remind people that this isn't about a few 'celebrity artists' but about supporting the hard-working artists who have the potential to be the next Cezanne, Turner or Picasso. These artists are in their studios right now, trying to work out how they'll pay the rent while they labour over a canvas that will one day be proclaimed as a masterpiece.

The Open Studios event is one of the best ways to discover and support these artists. You can visit them in their studios and discuss what they're working on, and unlike any other market, you can directly influence the progress of their career. One generous sale or commission can transform how much time an artist can dedicate to their work, and can be a spring board that brings their work to the attention of a good gallery and a growing collector base.

This is also the best time to invest in the work of many artists in the Bridport Art Scene. This is the beginning of the careers of many artists here, some are already gaining representation by London galleries, and a few will go on to exhibit at international galleries. Most of us offer payment by installment, which means people on a relatively low income can easily start collecting important contemporary art.

It's also been great to see "Wandering Through Wessex", an exhibition by Gallerist Charlie Caldecott. Charlie discovered the Bridport Art Scene while exploring Dorset Art Weeks last year, and he was immediately impressed by the calibre of art he found here. He's planning on bringing our scene to the attention of a far wider national and international audience.

I'd really recommend you visit the exhibition as soon as possible, as it's only on for this week (ends 12th Sept), and has an excellent mixture of artists including myself, Jon Adam, Claire Trenchard (you can see her wolves howling at the moon in my painting), David Cobley, John Boyd, Georgina Fermer, Judith Gait, David Kennard and Wendy Poole.

We're now preparing for an Open Studios event to coincide with the Bridport Literary Festival in November, so watch this space!

Redevelopment Result

2009-09-04T00:59:00.003+01:00

First of all, my apologies for not writing this post for a couple of weeks, as I know some of you have been waiting to hear about the redevelopment threat to St Michael's Studios...

We've actually had the most incredible couple of weeks - First we managed to get the 2nd 'redevelopment' proposal rejected, and last weekend was our most popular Bridport Open Studios event ever.

On Thursday 20th August hundreds of local people turned out in force for the 'southwest quadrant' planning decision meeting at the United Church Hall on East Street, and 30 speakers (27 of whom were opposed to the development) pushed the meeting to 3 hours of high drama before the district councillors voted 5 to 4 to reject the 2nd proposal.

Councillor Ros Kayes summed it up when she said “What you are therefore faced with today is a moral decision – to support the profits of a private developer or to recognise the special qualities of an area of unique historical and economic significance to Bridport."

It was an amazing event that all those present will remember, and it was the main conversation about town for the following week. It was as if local people had woken up to the fact that what they most loved about the town was threatened and they had to do something about it. After the committee’s decision Bridport Town Council leader Dave Rickard said: “I don’t think I have ever been more proud of where I live than last Thursday. "

You can read the Bridport News coverage of the event here, as we wait to see what the West Dorset District Council will come up with next...

Naturally we were very happy that we were able to return to work at St Michael's Studios, but there was also a strong feeling of anger over the considerable time we've all had to spend in order to save what is now recognised as an important asset to the town. Many of us are extremely disappointed that the WDDC has continued to try to push unsuitable redevelopment plans onto our town, without a genuine consultation with local traders, and to waste our valuable time as we've had to defend our jobs and community.

You would think that they would be trying to support the many self-employed tenants of the St Michael's Trading Estate, since Bridport is still a low-income working town that needs more jobs and employment, not more housing estates. The WDDC should be pleased that we still have a thriving trading estate in the heart of the town, and we would love them to ask US how they can help us build on our success.

Before the meeting, Town and district Councillor David Tett had urged members to "support the planning officers’ recommendation to go ahead and tidy up the area before it fell further into decay." This is a totally inaccurate and misleading thing to say. The fact is that every available space is being used on the trading estate, and there is always demand for whatever spaces become available. We agree that certain areas are run down, but that is only because just the minimum amount of money has been invested by the landlords to keep the estate going. We haven't complained because this has also kept the rents low, which is exactly what has allowed the area to flourish.

I said at the meeting that we actually have a great relationship with our landlords, since they do a great job in providing low cost studios for the creative industries and allowing many small businesses the opportunity to start-up without high operating costs. I hope that we can now all go forward with an appreciation for what the area brings to Bridport, and learn to work together in the future for the greater good of the town - all of us - tenants, traders, landlords, town and district councils.

I'll tell you about our amazing Bridport Open Studios event on my next blog...

Protect our Creative Communities!

2009-08-12T01:44:00.005+01:00

This whole redevelopment nightmare has made me even more aware of the importance of protecting our culture and community from greedy developers, like those who have already ripped the heart out of hundreds of towns across the county, destroying the unique character of historic towns and breaking up the communities that allow us to care for, support and help one another.

Many of these redevelopment projects start as apparently well-meaning schemes that use words like "regeneration" but they are really about a small number of people making a quick profit at the expense of the community as a whole. They are essentially selfish in nature, and inevitably lead to a widening economic divide, the fragmentation of different cultures, and the eventual disintegration of society.

When we find a town where we've managed to keep a sense of community alive, it's vital that we protect it from these greedy and short-sighted interests. There are obvious parallels to the amazon rain forest, which apparently contains potential remedies for most diseases, but are instead cut down and made into farm land in order to satisfy short-term economic interests.

The St Michael's Trading Estate is now home to dozens of eclectic businesses that make the area feel vibrant and inspiring, and the area has now affectionately become known as the Artistic Quarter of Bridport. The creative industries have flourished here, and there are many businesses that use traditional skills including upholsterers, carpenters, sculptors, masons, designers, illustrators, sign-writers, architects and artists.

But the great thing about the trading estate is that alongside the artists and artisans, many other types of businesses are thriving. Clipper Teas and Top Gear, two nationally recognised businesses started here, alongside an indoor bike park, a waste-management centre, a recycling and bio-diesel centre, a local food centre that provides food for local schools, a discount wood store, a glass and tile shop, a wine shop, an electrical goods centre, a window-blinds shop, and dozens of other small businesses.

The St Michael's Studio complex now provides studios for over 25 artists, and many of us rely on our quarterly Open Studio events for our income. To take away our studios also means taking away our gallery space, so even if our studios are relocated, we would lose the use of a high profile venue that we've devoted ten years to develop.

We also know what immense value we bring to the area, because of the direct feedback we receive from hundreds of visitors to our Open events. Many of our visitors simply can't believe a venue like ours still exists, since government legislation and bureaucracy make it very hard for these genuinely authentic creative havens to survive.

There's still time to help! Please submit your objections to the redevelopment proposals at this website. Simply select 'Submit Comment' and let your voice be heard. Because the louder the public shout, the more the councillors will have to listen, and if they know this is an unpopular project then they are less likely to put their names to it.

Please support the artists

2009-08-11T01:16:00.005+01:00

Well, Bridport Open Studios is upon us very soon, in fact under two weeks, so all the artists here are busy getting ready. The worrying thing is that the West Dorset District Council meeting to decide whether the studio gets 'redeveloped' happens next Thursday, 20th August. So at the time when we should all be focused on showing off this brilliant venue, instead we're concerned whether we actually have a future, and distracted from continuing to develop something that has become a huge asset to the town.

We've now got the full support of Bridport Town Council, of the majority of the public, and key local figures, but the final decision still lies with the planning committee of the Dorchester based District Council. The problem is that people in Dorchester have the power to decide Bridport's fate, and yet that town is very different from Bridport.

While Bridport is rapidly growing a national reputation as a vibrant creative town with a unique bohemian atmosphere created by its diverse and eclectic community, Dorchester has now got very little to show for itself, apart from Prince Charles's widely derided 'Poundbury' housing estate on the outskirts.

The fact is that Bridport has grown mainly because it HASN'T had the interference of government, and hasn't yet been victim to those greedy 'redevelopment' and 'regeneration' projects that have ripped the heart out of most of our towns.

Bridport has become an example to the country through the initiative, imagination and enterprise of courageous individuals, rather than government guidelines and rhetoric. In fact, it's time for government to listen to the people once again, rather than attempt to push through another short-sighted building project that benefits a small group of people while destroying a bustling local economy and its supportive community.

I ask all those Councillors who have the power to decide Bridport's fate to visit the St Michael's Trading Estate, to come and meet the businesses, traders and artists. Come and look round our studio complex that provides affordable studios for 25 artists and delights hundreds of visitors at events throughout the year. Visit the designers and architects, the sign-writers, masons, carpenters, upholsterers, the sculptors, painters and illustrators. Visit the antique shops and 2nd hand stores, the local food centre that provides the local school meals, the recycling centre, the bio-diesel centre, the discount furniture centre, the indoor bike park, and the dozens of other businesses that have made this historic rope-making estate into the heart of Bridport.

I want to be an artist again, we all do, rather than having to fight to save our studios. Please show your support for our campaign by attending the Emergency Public Meeting at which the planning decision will be made. The meeting will be held at 2:15pm on Thursday the 20th August at the United Church Hall in Bridport. We would appreciate your presence. Thank you.

Save the studios!

2009-08-10T01:56:00.005+01:00

The St Michael's Studios complex is threatened by a massive redevelopment project on the historic trading estate on which we're based. We won't let this happen. We now provide studios for over 25 artists, and we've become an important cultural destination in the South West of England.

I started the studios exactly 10 years ago in 1999, when all I had was a bikers bar next door, and a discount furniture store at the other end of the building. Gradually more artists began to arrive, until we've now taken over the entire 1st and 2nd floors of this beautiful Edwardian, former rope-making building.

We now do quarterly Open Studio events that attract hundreds of people - the next one is this coming August Bank Holiday weekend - and we've realised from the feedback we receive that we're offering a really wonderful and rare experience. People simply aren't used to the sense of community and casual creativity that they experience here. It's obvious that our 'bean-counting' society is gradually weeding out the genuine creative outlets, destroying them with legislation and bureaucracy.

It's important that we do something about this now. We must 'draw a line in the sand' and put the quality of our communities above the greed of developers. I've already lost two studios to developers (in London). Help us to stop yet another developer ripping the heart out of one of the few 'genuine' towns we have left.

Please go to this page and click on 'submit a comment' and express your objection to the current redevelopment proposal.

Cafe Royal Series

2007-11-04T19:59:00.001Z

I've recently started on my fifth Cafe Royal painting, so this seems like an appropriate time to introduce this series of paintings...

The Cafe Royal is a 50's restaurant in the small town of Bridport, Dorset, UK, where I live. For me it's the most interesting building in the town, and a welcome break from the usual 'picture postcard' views of twee red-brick dwellings covered in ivy and flowers.

Cafe Royal 1, oil on canvas, 150x75cm

I made the first Cafe (above) in 2001, mainly because I wanted to find new ways to connect with more people. I'd been working on a series of large Abstract 'process' paintings since 1995, and I found that they were simply too obscure to appeal to a wide audience.

I pass the Cafe Royal on my way (by bicycle) to my studio every day, so I've watched it change from dawn to dusk, and throughout the seasons, for several years.

It also contains so many metaphors for my experiences growing up in the UK, and the way we live today. The 'greasy spoon' cafe is a familiar sight in towns across the country, and next to motorway service stations. The food is usually criminally bad, and yet somehow these places remain, sustained probably by the constant flow of travellers and truckers needing to eat, however unhealthy the food might be...

But there's also a very welcoming and reassuring side to these Cafes, particularly at night, or during the dark winter evenings. And in their clumsy way they become emblems of hope, with the promise of warmth and friendly company.

Cafe Royal 2, oil on canvas, 150x75cm

The second Cafe is starker and no people are visible, with the focus now purely on the building itself. The Cafe still looks welcoming, drawing the viewer in from the dark, lonely streets. There is an air of anticipation in the air, as if a story is unfolding, and the long, panoramic shape of the canvas adds a 'cinematic' effect, as if we are watching a 'still' image from a movie...

Cafe Royal 3

The third Cafe is more subdued in tone. Once again the streets are empty, but now the cafe is deserted as well, with just a scattering of light showing from the vending machines inside. The streets have a rather urban feel, and the road is dark and drab. Even the blue sky overhead is looking less benign, perhaps it's about to turn stormy? Only this time we'll have nowhere go to to escape the rain...

Cafe Royal 4

The forth in the series goes deeper into Film Noir territory, the light has almost gone, creating an eerie, haunted atmosphere.

Cafe Royal 6, oil on canvas, 120x60cm

*** UPDATE Jan 11 2011

Four more Cafe Royal paintings!

Cafe Royal Clouds, oil on canvas, 120x60cm

Cafe Royal Riley, oil on cavas, 30x15cm

Cafe Royal Wet Roads, oil on canvas, 120x60cm

Dark Cafe, oil on canvas, 180x71cm

2007-01-20T17:23:00.000Z

I've just got back from a week in London.
I went to the Preview Night of the London Art Fair,
to see Artoose Collective Artists Douglas McDougall and Yuko Moriyama at the Victor Felix stand.
I saw also visited the Dexter Dalwood show at the Gagosian Gallery (King's Cross), and Christopher Orr at IBID Projects on Vyner Street.