Coastal Gallery Blog

Art Inspired Gifts at Coastal Gallery

For many of us, an appreciation of fine art is a way of life. We can find space for beauty and design in our homes and in our wardrobes. Even if we may not be fortunate enough to have the real thing hanging in our living room, there are ways to appropriate your chosen style and surround yourself with references understood by fellow enthusiasts. Many museums and galleries facilitate our need to bring a little piece of art home in their often fantastic range of cards and collection related gifts. At Coastal Gallery we are delighted to announce a new range of ‘Art Inspired’ gifts, including Loqi Museum Collection bags (it’s important to look on-trend when you’re doing your shopping), luxurious scarves designed by colourist Gohar Goddard, and a selection of cards from the Royal Academy of Arts. This new collection will shore up our classic gift range such as the beautiful jewellery collection by Jo Vane and the veritable rainbow of stunningly glazed ceramics by Jackie Giron. Treat yourself and pop in this weekend to find a style that suits you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Arek Nowicki at Coastal Gallery

Arek Nowicki is a ceramic artist who is breaking onto the British art scene with his unique and fantastical ceramic sculptures and vessels. Originally from Poland where he developed his craft through numerous apprenticeships, he now works from his studio in Bournemouth. Coastal Gallery feels enormously privileged to display some of his works at the gallery in Lymington and to support his growing reputation and recognition as one of the most unusual and experimental ceramic artists working in Britain today.

While Arek still uses the concept of a ‘jug’, ‘platter’ or ‘bowl’ to anchor his work in a recognisable form, the result is always art for art’s sake. Rough stoneware clay provides the material strength from which he can create his large scale organic shapes and structures. All Arek’s work is hand built and his large-scale vessels are feats of impressive ceramic engineering. To balance the solidity and rough texture of the stoneware clay, Arek is a master at applying beautifully delicate and intricate crystalline glazes which shimmer on the surface of his works. From delicate blues and soft greens to earthy sienna with golden highlights, the range of colour afforded by his careful mixing of glazes give his work an ethereal quality.

“(…) Jugs become sculptures;

The border between the two is crossed only when the glazed jug is viewed by different eyes, when the details, decorations and the glazes are observed as the art and the vessel as the canvas upon which they are described (…)”. Arek Nowicki

Coastal Gallery has a range of Arek’s work on display, from his beautifully glazed smaller ‘bowls’ starting at around £75.00 to his large ceramic sculptures which can fetch up to £3,500.00. A good selection of his large vessels (pictured in this article) can be seen at Coastal Gallery and are normally priced around £1,800.00. Arek’s sculptures are extremely striking and draw the eye wherever they sit.

Claire Wiltsher

Claire Wiltsher is a landscape painter who lives and works in Lyndhurst. Her paintings beautifully capture the ever changing light and colours of the landscape. Claire has a very distinctive semi-abstract style which provides plenty of anchors for the viewer to understand the scene in front of them, but her use of multiple layers of paint and sometimes collage is often abstract in its application providing opportunities for heavily textured areas and for colours to be brought together through scratching, scraping and throwing paint at the canvass. Often her paintings evoke a moment when light is captured transforming a scene into something more sublime. In reality these moments are so fleeting, but Claire manages to capture them on canvass for us to enjoy again and again. It is not surprising therefore that she names Turner as one of her main influences and her frequent use of yellows, oranges and ochre seem also to be a nod to the great romantic painter. Anyone who lives in the New Forest and South Coast would also recognise her magical mix of yellows as being the perfect evocation of the yellow tinted haze that is so distinctive to these parts.

We are lucky enough to exhibit Claire’s work on a regular basis at Coastal Gallery and this week have received several new pieces. Please feel free to come in and enjoy seeing Claire’s work first hand.

Spring Wetlands II

90cm x 90cm

Claire Wiltsher: “The painting “Spring wetlands” is part of a small group of paintings inspired from Pennington marshes out walking a number of weeks ago. Silver greys and burnt umber merge with Ochre in a spatial hazy vision”.

Remains in Skye

50cm x 50cm

Claire Wiltsher: “‘Remains in Skye’ reflects the view from my window in Skye last month. A heavily textured painting showing the many layers of landscape. From the sky to the mountains from the river to the marshes. I used a combination of Acrylic as a base with fragments of collage and built up layers of oil paint over the top. Areas have been scrapped away to reveal textures beneath”.

Claire Wiltsher has gained a wealth of exhibiting experience alongside her 20 years teaching and co-ordinating various art programmes. She holds a Master’s in Fine Art from Northumbria University, her work has been nationally exhibited and she has been a finalist in many competitions. In 2010 Claire received the ‘Rosemary and Co’ Society of Women Artists annual award and was selected for the 2010 Royal Society of Marine Artists exhibition at the Mall Galleries.

CHRIS WHITTAKER

Profile Chris was Creative Director of a leading advertising agency in London. Never having done a proper day’s work in his life (Chris’s words, not ours!), he moved to Lymington and took up painting full time. Chris likes painting foliage and ‘the chaotic, messy bits of nature – the bits people walk past or over without noticing’.Working in oils and at life size, Chris has a meticulous eye for detail and a wonderfully quirky view of the world. He has exhibited widely in London, including the Brick Lane Gallery, the New English Art Club, Jozes London 2011; and the Mall Galleries, where he won the prestigious Company of Painters and Stainers Award. Regionally, Chris has exhibited at the St. Barbe Museum, Lymington, the National Open Exhibition 2010 in ChIchester and Art in the Park, South Yorkshire. Chris has paintings in collections throughout the UK, and in Berlin, Geneva, Italy, Jersey, London, New Zealand and the USA. Coastal Gallery is delighted to stock a regularly changing selection of Chris’s paintings. Please contact us for further details re sizes, prices and availability.

SAMUAL KAI

We are delighted to be exhibiting the work of Samual Kai who is currently studying fine art at AUB. Sam visited Coastal Gallery last year and we were immediately impressed by his enthusiastic commitment and approach to his work. Here is an extract from Sam’s own diary notes which informed his painting and which acknowledges the influences of both Basquiat and Rauschenberg. We look forward to showing more examples of Sam’s painting and progress – including exhibiting with us at ArtSway 2017. My intention within this project was to convey the feelings and sentiments that comes with losing a close friend and confidante; that is to say that I wish wished to convey ‘grief’. I wished to allow this project to flow seamlessly from the last and so these two projects should be viewed together. I kept a diary from around the time of Daniel’s death. This diary recorded my thoughts, mostly in ambiguous drawings and short cryptic phrases to protect those involved. In places, I was more candid so I sealed these pages with tape or painted over in acrylic. These diary pages were used to inform a large painting on builder’s pallets. I wished to produce more paintings but I failed to do so. My only excuse was my low mood at the time. In an attempt to counter this effect, I initiated a new sketchbook entitled ‘Book of cartoons and shitty doodles when I’m too depressed to draw’ so that I could produce work without pressure of complying to an aesthetic style. This solution was only partially successful. I studied Francisco Goya’s series of prints entitled ‘Disasters of war’ and the additions made by the Chapman brothers to these iconic works. I hope that in doing so, I could convey some fraction of the horror that the Spanish master and contemporary British duo command. I failed to do so. I also gained inspiration from the prints and drawings by both Louise Bourgeois and Tracey Emin, in an attempt to imbue my drawings with a similar emotional potency. I (mostly) failed to do so. My painting was stylistically influenced by the neo-expressionists such as Jean Michel-Basquiat but also Robert Rauschenberg (who, despite not being considered a neo-expressionist, probably influenced Basquiat).

Stephen Powell at Coastal Gallery Lymington

Stephen Powell at Coastal Gallery Lymington

Above and Below: Stephen Powell, Duende Moon Series. Acrylic on Canvass

Stephen Powell has been exhibiting with Coastal Gallery Lymington for a number of years and his work always produces a liveliness of colour and form. His works display an extraordinary talent for bringing together bold shapes, hard edges and an expressively wide range of mark making skills in a coherently beautiful whole.

‘My work is not abstract in total. I always have subject matter and try to get closer to it through the use of a broad vocabulary of mark making, linked to considered use of colour and composition’.

Stephen is a painter and printmaker who works from his studios in the New Forest or in the South of France. His intention is to paint things that exist but can’t be seen, such sound or a feeling. He reacts to the colour and composition as it confronts him on the canvass and feels that painting and the desire to leave a mark is an instinctive action. Stephen has described his creative process as being most creative when it’s ‘walking a tightrope with disaster’.

While Stephen might provide a rough signpost for his own intentions through use of a title, he keeps his directions purposely vague to allow the viewer to create and interpret the paintings for themselves. Standing in front of one of his works is a fun and creative challenge to the viewer, where there are no wrong answers.

Coastal gallery Lymington are delighted to exhibit a selection of Stephen’s stunning work and are happy to facilitate a moment of contemplation should you wish to experience some of Stephen’s work for yourself.

 

Celebrating Ceramic Artists !

If the ending of BBC 2’s Great Pottery Throw Down last week has left you feeling the need for more ceramics in your life, then we at Coastal Gallery Lymington have the answer. Arek Nowicki, a ceramic artist based in Bournemouth, may not have modelled with Gisele but his hand built ceramic vessels and bowls are exquisite, sensual and downright impressive. His use of tough stoneware clay combined with the most delicate crystalline glazes create eccentric and exciting textural combinations, almost as if revealing a crystal from the earth. The free-flowing forms and often sheer scale of Arek’s vessels make a clear artistic statement and provide glamour and style wherever they stand. A handpicked collection of Arek’s works are on display here at the Coastal Gallery Lymington and we welcome all pottery lovers to come and have a look. Jackie Giron is a local ceramic artist based in Pilley. Jackie takes inspiration from the local landscape, geological strata and the ever-changing skies and light of the south coast. Her bowls have been described as “little jewels” and her layers of beautifully coloured glazes pool at the bottom of her bowls leaving a deeply coloured centre of melted glass reminiscent of rock pools on a bright sunny day. So what comes after the recent obsession with pottery? Spring is the time to enjoy the great outdoors. Julie Collins is a highly decorated watercolour artist based at Milford-on-sea who starts each day walking along the sea wall and taking inspiration from our beautiful coastline. Her work often uses both watercolour and acrylic and she pushes the boundaries of the paint to create large scale abstract paintings that convey the beauty and temporality of each scene. Her works are delicate and full of texture and light. Come and see works from all of these artists at the Coastal gallery Lymington. Be inspired, or perhaps take one home with you!

Claire Wiltsher – NEW ARRIVALS !

Readers of this month’s issue of HAMPSHIRE LIFE will have already seen that Claire Wiltsher’s atmospheric and immersive work wins her the first Hampshire Life Landscape painter of the year competition. “My work is based on landscape and my intention is to capture a sense of place by depicting an atmosphere – I build up layers or depth and texture using fragments of collage and drawing materials over the top of the dried oil painting, with further painted layers applied.” We have just received some really delightful new paintings from Claire – seascapes and landscapes – do come and and see Claire’s beautiful work for yourself !

Update from Coastal Gallery

Hampshire Open Studios 2017

Plans are already well advanced for this years summer exhibition at ArtSway during Hampshire Open Studios taking place saturday 20th August until bank holiday monday 28th August with the Private View taking place on friday 18th August 6pm – 8pm. Please email or contact us with your address details if you would like an invitation to the PV. Artists this year include Chris Whittaker, Stephen Powell, Biddy Hodgkinson, Martyn Brewster, Julie Collins. Arek Nowicki & Jackie Giron will be exhibiting ceramics and pottery, with Mike Turner exhibiting his stunning stainless steel Sculpture. We will be hosting a new area for digital art sponsored by the Open Data Institute with special guest artists being announced very soon !