We are thrilled to be taking part in this year’s Chelsea Art Fair at The Chelsea Town Hall. We see this as a fantastic opportunity to connect with other galleries across the UK and to show our unique and wonderful artists that we represent at the gallery.
This year we are featuring an array of our gallery artists at our stand including work by: Kerry Harding, Miles Heseltine, Ashley Hold, Alasdair Lindsay, Myles Oxenford, Hector Trend, Andrew Tozer, Erin Ward, Benjamin Warner and Sarah Wimperis. We are also showcasing sculpture by Peter Hayes and the ceramics of Paul Jackson for the first time.
Cottages at Helford |by Richard Tuff | gouache on paper | 38 x 48 cms | £1,150
Here at Beside The Wave Cornwall, we are thrilled to be hosting our 25th solo show for the widely renowned and highly collected artist, Richard Tuff.
After 28 years of representation, it’s hard to believe there are any Cornish coves, cottages or harbours left that haven’t been depicted by Tuff; constantly seeking out inspiration in his surroundings and developing his celebrated distinctive style. In Tuff’s work, change is not forced. Through exposure to new landscapes, he has discovered that the process of painting furthers itself.
His latest collection combines classic Cornish scenes of Helford, Durgan and Mylor with views of simple greenhouses and courtyards. In Tuff’s playful compositions we see canoes propped up against a harbour wall, plants lining shelves and boats bobbing outside the Pandora.
Rendering the complexity of a view into abstract simplicity, and rebuilding it into a figurative image is what Tuff does best. Unlike many landscape painters whose focus is on capturing the moment – and particularly the light in a landscape- his work expresses a place ‘in essence’. Almost the alchemist, Tuff absorbs landscapes through repeated exposure to them and then draws them out layer by layer in the studio.
At Beside The Wave, we feel hugely proud to have showcased this masterful artist’s work for almost three decades, and to acknowledge his career as one of Cornwall’s most successful and well-known contemporary artists.
Our current exhibition ‘Masters of Colour’ is open from the 10th – 29th March 2017 and celebrates four of our gallery artists and their exceptional use of colour within different mediums. In this collection you can see vibrant paintings by Myles Oxenford and Richard Tuff along with Paul Jackson’s painterly ceramics and Louisa Taylor’s pastel coloured porcelain vessels.
Myles Oxenford paintings currently on display in the gallery
Myles lives and works in rural Cornwall where he explores the landscape of his surrounding environment with his dog (who he paints on rainy days) and often his surfboard. He also returns frequently to paint in Scotland, Wales and the Alps.
”In my paintings I want to convey the feeling of sitting in and becoming part of the landscape. I primarily paint outside to capture the light and movement that make the landscape alive to me. By exploring colour and brush marks I am constantly experimenting with different ways of balancing a desire to represent and abstract the Cornish landscape in my work.” – Myles Oxenford
Louisa Taylor Crocus Nest of Three Bowls
Louisa Taylor’s Crocus Nest of Three Bowls – £350
Conceptually, Louisa’s hand-thrown porcelain vessels draw on museum collections of 18th-century tableware, her modern forms and subtle glazes playing off their antique hand-painted brushwork and dimensions.
As well as form and function, Taylor is especially interested in colour permutation. During her MA studies at the Royal College of Art, she developed a keen interest in coloured stoneware glazes. This started a vast research project that has produced more than 1,000 recipes for new glazes and surface finishes. As a result, she consults as a freelance designer to leading companies in the industry.
“The subtle colour palette of the range is directly influenced by hand painted decoration on historical tureens and grand vessels. I deconstruct each individual colour and match it with glaze. I use the content of the decoration to inform the overall composition of the piece; for example the height of the vessel correlates to the proportion of the colour in the pattern. The intention is to create works that as a whole describe the pattern from where they derived.” – Louisa Taylor
A view of Richard Tuff’s work within ‘Masters of Colour’
Richard Tuff’s paintings have a unique almost child like charm to them. The colours are rich and strong with many subtle changes of light and tone capturing so well on paper the Cornish harbours and towns. He carefully studies the subject matter to be painted and then captures the essence and the feeling of a place, often disregarding the natural order of things.
”I have sought to emphasise the tranquillity of this area with a palette of cool blues and greens, using the gentlest and most harmonious tones to express this sense” – Richard Tuff
Paul Jackson’s ceramics in our window display
Paul Jackson decorates his ceramics in a painterly fashion giving each piece a unique and individual character. He starts by hand throwing them on a wheel and often uses white earthenware clay to freely sculpt each ceramic. More recently he has been working with local stoneware and porcelain in a salt glaze kiln, referencing his inspiration from the Cornish landscape.
BBC Two’s Great Pottery Throwndown came back to our screens in February after a hugely successful first series, attracting over 2 million viewers each week. The show, which many are describing as The Great British Bake Off meets clay, sees ten amateur potters compete to become Top Potter with a number of challenges that range from garden sculpture to a 12-piece porcelain tea set. The third episode of the new series focused on the art of Japenese style ceramics and featured the work of Penzance-based potter Catherine Lucktaylor as a perfect example of how to master the dramatic process of raku-firing.
Raku-firing involves taking pots while they are still glowing red from the kiln and placing them immediately into containers filled with combustible materials. The materials ignite and the containers are closed, producing an intense reduction atmosphere which effects the colours in glazes and clay as well as creating a distinctive cracking due to the drastic thermal shock. The pots are then plunged into cold water to halt the firing process.
Catherine Lucktaylor‘s ‘Wild Cornwall’ series of pots uses the Raku process to create an expressive and colourful finish, reminiscent of flower filled clifftops and swirling seas. Catherine was sought out for the program that showed judge and master potter Keith Brymer Jones holding her pot up from the group of examples to completely focus on her stand-out decoration.
Catherine has been making and experimenting with Raku for over 25 years and was lucky enough to be taught by two well known and respected authorities on Raku during her two-year foundation at Huddersfield Polytechnic and at Wolverhampton Polytechnic as part of her BA Hons in Ceramics. After this she moved to Cardiff and then Brighton, continuing to explore kiln building and Raku, sawdust and pit firings. In 1999, Catherine received a travelling Fellowship from the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust and travelled to West Africa and Brazil, creating mixed media sculptural installations as she explored her mixed British-Ghanaian heritage. It was the birth of her son, Leon, in 2007 and another move, to West Cornwall, that led her back to her first love of ceramics. Catherine now specialises in hand built Raku-fired ceramics inspired by the Cornish landscape, which she creates in her large studio near Penzance.
Her work has been exhibited in galleries across the UK, including the Beside The Wave galleries who are celebrating Catherine’s Great Pottery Throwdown feature with a show focusing on her ceramics in their gallery in Falmouth (10th – 30th March). The collection will include brand new work from Catherine’s ‘Wild Cornwall’ series, allowing fans of the show to see Catherine’s textured and bright finishes first hand.We also have another collection of Cornish Mist Pots by Catherine on our website.
For those wishing to find out even more about the process, Catherine runs Raku course and master classes from her studio, details of which can be found on her website.
We are excited to announce the opening of Andrew Tozer‘s new exhibition ‘Celebration’ now open in both our Falmouth and London galleries until the 8th March.
The paintings shown in Cornwall celebrate the wonderful Cornish landscape with seascapes of St.Mawes and classic harbour scenes from Mousehole and Falmouth. Whilst the paintings shown in London are a smaller collection of intimate portrayals of the artist’s home farm and family.
Andrew Tozer’s paintings alongside Peter Hayes sculptures
This show continues to focus on Andrew’s fascination with the cornish landscape and its quality of light and colour with many of his works being created ‘en plein air’:
‘The common link between both collections is one of celebration. By this I mean that in all the works produced I have attempted to capture a special moment and share it with the viewer. In both collections, many of the works are painted ‘en plein air’ or as some say ‘live’. This process is both immensely challenging and hugely rewarding for me as an artist, as one has to exist simultaneously in the moment one is trying to capture and in the actual painting itself thus creating a unique connection.’ – Andrew Tozer
Andrew Tozer’s paintings alongside Louisa Taylor’s ceramics.
About The Artist
Andrew Tozer was born in Cornwall in 1974. Inspired by art materials found around his parents house he started drawing at a very early age. By fifteen he was sure that becoming a painter was his true calling and at 19 he moved to the capital to study at Westminster University and then on to Central Saint Martins. It was here that he first began to paint outdoors. Taking small sketchbooks and minimal painting materials he would visit Trafalgar Square,Richmond and Kew Gardens.
On graduating Andrew returned to Cornwall and he started to paint the area that he grew up in. Now, Andrew’s paintings record the everchanging nuances of light in his surroundings and his paintings are in the Impressionist tradition. The simplicity and beauty of his work, however, is underpinned by rigorous draftsmanship and the intensity and complexity of his paint handling. His fast, accurate, painterly language becomes clear as thin coats of colour and glazes are applied repeatedly. This is a process that can take months: sites are revisited, paintings adjusted and repainted until a final conclusion is reached.
Andrew Tozer is one of the leading contemporary painters in whose work the legacy of Impressionism resonates: landscapes are expressed with breathtaking immediacy,
fleeting impressions rendered in such a way as to capture the essence of what’s there. His highly collected work has been shown exhibited widely throughout Cornwall and the
UK.
With the most romantic day of the year just around the corner, we’ve made it easy to say ‘I love you’ this Valentine’s day in a truly unique way. We have put together a guide using some of our most precious items in the gallery that would be perfect for a loved one this Valentines day.
Click, call or email with your most loved piece, will we gift wrap and send it to you before Tuesday 14th February.
We hope you enjoy our Valentine’s Gift Guide.
From left to right: Necklace, labradorite, herkimer diamonds and silver, £380 | Rockpool stud earrings, silver, £70 by Emily Nixon
. From left to right: Curl bangle, silver, £295 | Curl giant knot pendant, silver, £180, by Stephanie Johnson
Mackerel Fishing, Oil on board, 67 x 61 cm, £1,950
Our current exhibition ‘Sea Interludes’ features a new collection of paintings by Robert Jones inspired by the musical sequences in Benjamin Britten’s opera Peter Grimes; Jones presents a response to these melodys with the paint itself, using the light to represent changing moods.
Robert Jones was born in Newquay, Cornwall in 1943. He studied at Falmouth School of Art where he was taught by Francis Hewlett and Robert Organ. The impressions he gained of the area, the changing weather and light, wild seas and skies are a recurring theme in his work; an important formative influence providing the practical and theoretical foundations for his art.
See images of the exhibition below
Alongside Jones’ paintings in the gallery are exclusive new sculptures by Peter Hayes and Reece Ingram.
Here is an interesting excerpt from Jenny Pery’s book : “Robert Jones” which gives and insight into Jones’ concepts and thoughts behind his work.
“The recent series of seas and skies, painted in a format just off the square and reduced to a simple structure of clouds and water meeting over a low horizon, contain truths about the weather, which can be universally recognised. These are not merely paintings of the sea, but are about the experience of being at sea. They explore the subtle shifts of wind and water from a close viewpoint; they identify with the sea, seeming to contain symbolic truths about internal weather, about human moods and feelings. These nuances of mood can hardly be names, but they are nevertheless recognisable as states of being. These are paintings made in the studio over a long period of time, which are deliberations on past experience. While the content has been sorted and sifted, the freshness of touch remains. Each has a specific yet timeless presence. “ Amongst my favourite pieces of music are the Sea Interludes from the Benjamin Britten opera Peter Grimes. These extraordinary compositions communicate such emotion. The four movements are called: Dawn; Sunday Morning; Moonlight; and Storm; they evoke different sea moods. Water and light etc, and echo moods within ourselves. I hope the viewer will sense something of this from the different seastates and moods in the paintings.’
The collection, the second in the artist’s series of blue works, stems from an almost twenty-year fascination with a particular ultramarine:
‘Ultramarine Blue is the blue of the Medieval Church, it’s the blue of the Virgin Mary, it’s the blue of the Princes and Popes of the Renaissance. It is the perfect blue made by grinding up the semi-precious stone Lapis Lazuli, and purifying it by a complex and difficult process. Sometimes referred to as True Blue, it was and still is one of the more expensive pigments (although now it is made from a chemical process). But I love it. I found my blue, called A19, in the form of big fat crayons manufactured by the Unison Company. I now buy kilo bags of the pure pigment A19 and make my own oil and watercolours. Originally I used it to represent the total blue sky of the Australian series. The Deluge painting demanded it and so this single colour has acquired more and more significance, culminating in the present show. It’s paean to an ancient colour.’ Extract from ‘In conversation with Dr. Paul Williamson, Director V & A Museum’.
With the first series of blue works influenced by travels around the Mediterranean Sea, the starting point for this series is a more abstract one:
‘First and foremost, the paintings are about blue before they are about Sea and Sky. The iconography of the works is based on chance and accident. The format of the works is as simple as I can make it, sometimes a halfway division leaving two blocks of richly worked blue on top and bottom of the canvas. The wonder is that, despite this non-figurative approach, it still recalls to the onlooker Visceral memories of places and events that they may have experienced.’ Adrian Hemming, 2017
Artist Adrian Hemming and gallery manager Claire Pearce at the private view
Adrian Hemming was born in Leicester in 1945. Following an apprenticeship as an engineer he travelled widely in Europe and developed an appreciation of landscape and a love of art.
On returning to England, Adrian was accepted onto the Foundation Course at Lincoln College of Art. His B.A. was completed at Brighton Polytechnic (1973) and his M.A. at Goldsmiths College, London University (1982).
He co-founded Tichbourne Studios in Brighton and later founded the Angel Studios in London. He went on to establish Southgate Studios in the East End where he has been painting full time since 1990.
Adrian has twice been short-listed for the Artist in Residence at the National Gallery, London. He has lectured and exhibited widely in England, Scotland, America and South Africa. His work can be found in many private and public collections as well as being on public view in Terminal One, Heathrow Airport, as a result of a major commission by BAA.
One of our real highlights of 2016 was seeing all of the entries for our Art at Home competition, it was great way for us to see the wonderful ways in which our artwork has been displayed in your space.
Here are our top picks for the competition and why we thought they were deserving winners!
Our top winning image was of a glorious Emma Dunbar hanging above a fireplace.The playful still life composition in this painting seems to spill out of the frame and into the living room, complementing the style and qualities of the interior perfectly.
We love that this Richard Tuff gouache is hanging in a communal eating space and will no doubt be a topic of conversation. The splashes of colour within the interior really enhance this painting and add a playful quality.
Our third winner has a truly beautiful fireplace adorned with statuettes and a atmospheric Benjamin Warner to complete the style, we loved the effortless colour palette in this interior and how significant the painting was to the owner –
‘I saw this on your website at the time and went for it straightaway without even pausing for thought. I grew up in Porthleven and have so many lovely memories of it. I have a print of Peter Lanyon’s abstract work of Porthleven in my kitchen. But I have an original Benjamin Warner of it above my mantlepiece.’
We would like to thank all of you for your wonderful entries for this competition, they gave us so much joy and it was inspiring for us all to see the different ways that had curated your homes.
Jewellery by 
