My inspiration comes from the surrounding countryside,particularly the woods,rivers & streams.
Seb West is a St. Ives born artist who has spent over 30 years producing vivid, contemporary paintings of the Cornish landscape from his own unique perspective. Initially recognised for his painted linocut reliefs, Seb has since diversified across a wide range of media and styles. Since 2012 he has been creating mainly abstract and semi-abstract works which incorporate heavy textures and a variety of patinas including metallic paints and metal leaf.
Born in Leamington Spa, Mary undertook her art education at Mid Warwickshire College of Art and Goldsmiths College, London. She taught art and crafts in London before moving to Cornwall in the early 1970s. Since 1998 she has been involved with the Rambert Dance Company during their visits to the Hall for Cornwall, working with them during rehearsal. In 2005 she was shortlisted for the Jerwood Drawing Prize.
Bob Dawson’s work has been inspired by environmental and maritime issues taken from studies of the South West coast line.
John Emanuel is a giant on the St Ives art scene, creating work from his Porthmeor Studios space since the 1980s.
Peter Wray was trained as a painter, extending his practice into printmaking in the early 1970s, after being exposed to the richness and unique expressive power of the intaglio surface.
With his background in painting, and being largely self-taught as a printmaker, the integration of painterly methodology into the graphic process was a natural development, and it is this combination of approach which gives his work its distinctive style:- “prints about painting, and paintings about prints”.
‘Eric Ward’s pictures continue the best traditions of the St Ives School of Painting exemplified by the great artists of the past, among them Borlase Smart, Louis Greer and John Park’
‘This is the work of someone who has immersed himself in these landscapes, succumbed to them, become intoxicated by them. They are overwhelmingly positive and life-affirming. A painting of trees over water shimmers and shifts, the colours constantly rearranging themselves, reflections moving as if still fluid. I think that’s what I love most about Paul’s work – the sense that each painting is still growing, still evolving, still finding its own story. I could look at them for hours, days, years. I am sure you will feel the same.’
– Mark Kermode talking about his Paul Wadsworth painting
My work usually begins when I am walking – I make sketches, or jot down words.
When I’m in my studio the starting point for my work is spontaneous and experimental and I work on several pieces at once. At this stage, I prefer not to have any firm idea of what I am trying to achieve, and am happy to let the painting develop in its own way.
I return to each painting many times, to add texture and layers of colour. This stage of the process can take many months.
There is always a pivotal moment in each painting, which may be in response to the landscape, a still life arrangement, or simply an interesting juxtaposition of colours or shapes in my studio – whatever it is, my final intentions are realised when all distractions are stripped away in a moment of clarity.
‘From my mid-teens I knew I wanted to do something creative, with set design an original plan and then graphic design, before Edinburgh School of Art known at the time for its emphasis on drawing skills, introduced me to Furniture Design. A BA in 3-Dimensional Design at Leeds followed, and an Msc. in Sustainable Architecture much later.
It was only when I ‘ran away to St Ives’, that I found the time and space to revive the exiting and creative ways of thinking that I experienced as an art student.’