Monday 15 September 2014

Icelandic Design

I don't normally post about things un-gallery-related.... but I have just returned from a wonderful trip to Iceland and apart from the thermal lakes, geysers, wild horses, northern lights, waterfalls, mountain hikes, volcano pools.... phew.... I became completely hooked on Icelandic design.
 



Icelandic architecture from the outside is functional and it has to be said, pretty unglamorous. Concrete and corrugated iron cladding are the norms (there is a lack of native trees to be used for building materials). However, get within the concrete and corrugated iron and there is an emphasis on minimalistic design, lighting, texture and luxurious and natural materials. 







Just as an example. The visitor centre at "Geysir" houses a shop, bar and cafe. All of the plates and ceramic ware in the cafe are hand thrown and unique. The stools are handmade from vintage, recycled wood, the walls are polished concrete and the lighting has been carefully considered.... 











It was wonderful to be in a culture where craftsmanship is so valued and used in everyday life. Icelandic design has made me want to throw everything out of my home and start again from scratch!


Monday 8 September 2014

I thought it was high time to post something here (I can't believe it's been nearly a year since I posted! I guess that's what happens when you have a gallery to run - time just flies by...)

We've had a brilliant summer in the gallery. Here are a few highlights....

June - We enjoyed a very busy art fair at Hampstead in London, in fact it was our most successful to date in terms of sales and interest in our artists.







 we had a Janet Lynch solo exhibition on in the gallery throughout June and I was delighted that she sold a dozen paintings by the end of the first week. Janet has exhibited at Cornwall Contemporary for years and it was very satisfying to see her hard work and integrity pay off. The candyfloss machine at the private view was a particular hit!



July - we had a gallery full of gaff rigs and gulls throughout July with Simon Stooks' solo exhibition taking centre stage. 





August - Maggie Matthews show "Muse" was a wonderfully vibrant show buzzing with energy and colour. I was delighted that many of her larger canvases found new homes all over the country. Maggie and I both thought that this exhibition was her very best. Combining her wonderful sense of colour with layered textures and subtleties - it really was superb.




September - congratulations to gallery artist Alasdair Lindsay whose paintings are featured in the current edition of Ideal Home Magazine. Alasdair has a painting in our current exhibition - the Penzance & St. Ives show and is also busy working on new paintings for our next trip to London at the Affordable Art Fair in October.





The current exhibition at the gallery is "Penzance & St. Ives - Pen Sans & Porth Ia" and as the title suggests, it's a mixed show of paintings, printmaking, sculpture and installation that depicts contemporary views of two of England's most south westerly towns.



     
(clockwise from top left - Neil Pinkett with his paintings of Penzance street scenes, Simon Tunrer in front of his quirky paintings on found board of St. Ives and Penzance, Tom Rickman in front of his oil on canvas "Path and Cloud and Simon Pooley in front of "Moorings, Penzance")

As part of the "Penzance and St. Ives, Pen Sans and Porth Ia" exhibition, Morwenna Morrison is using the attic gallery for her installation "The Life and Times of a Studio". Following her recent artist residency at the Porthmeor Studios in St. Ives, the installation features, audio and visual projections and a series of photographic prints. It's a very unique and visually stunning installation.

Morwenna Morrison hanging work in her installation "The Life and Times of a Studio"


 Here's looking forward to an equally busy and interesting autumn. We have a solo exhibition of Arthur Lanyon's paintings throughout October - this follows on from his near sell out show here in 2013.
We also have our next art fair - the Battersea Affordable Art Fair - coming up at the end of October, followed by a mixed exhibition which takes us up til Christmas. Hope to see many of you at the gallery or in Battersea soon!

















Wednesday 2 October 2013

ooooh we won! (well... almost.....)

what a glamorous time we had last week attending the Cornwall Today inaugural Awards at the Headland Hotel in Newquay.

We had been shortlisted with 4 other galleries from the whole of Cornwall and our fellow nominees included The Tate Gallery, Penlee House and Falmouth Art Gallery - so we were definitely the underdog amongst the big publicly funded spaces!

It was a very swanky black tie affair with a red carpet, lots of champagne and even goodie bags under our seats (it felt a little like being at the Oscars)


There were lots of categories such as Best Hotel, Best Charity, Best Attraction etc and when the crunch came and it was time to announce the winner of Best Art Gallery.......
we missed out to Tate, St. Ives - not wholly unexpected!

I have to admit to being very proud that we featured on such a prestigious shortlist and I was delighted to walk away with my "Highly Commended" award which is now sitting in pride of place in the gallery window.


me and my husband Dom proudly showing off our "Highly Commended" award
 
thanks to everyone at Cornwall Today for laying on such a wonderful evening of food, music and entertainment for us all.

Roll on next year, when I will double my efforts to beat those big public galleries!

click here to read a lovely article about us winning our award:

Penzance Gallery Owner Delighted

Monday 1 July 2013

art fairs, famous people and giant lobsters...

what an eventful end to June the gallery had....

we packed up the van and headed off to The Affordable Art Fair in Hampstead where we had a marvellous (but exhausting) time meeting and selling to the great and the good in North London...
two rather tall bathing beauties check out the work of Fenella Elms
We were delighted with how our stand looked and we received a huge number of compliments about our artists work.

The paintings that we sold have ended up all over London and the UK and we even sent one Alasdair Lindsay painting off to Stockholm in Sweden and another off to Auckland in New Zealand.
We are looking forward to our next art fair which will be at Battersea this Autumn.

we always enjoy a little bit of Famous Person Spotting whilst we are at art fairs and this one provided rich pickings! We had lots of comedians visit our stand including Ricky Gervais, Michael McIntyre, Matt Lucas, Alan Davies, Paul Merton.... not to mention the odd politician and a giant lobster or two.... 


putting the final touches to our stand





Wednesday 1 May 2013

 well we've had quite an interesting time of it at the gallery lately....

It was the private view for Alasdair Lindsay and Simon Pooley last Friday evening and Simon invited some of his fellow tango dancing friends along. 

Everyone got in the dancing spirit and danced their way through the exhibition enjoying the evening of champagne, tango and beautiful paintings.
It's a really fantastic exhibition and we've had lots of people coming in for a look since the opening.
The was a fantastic review of the exhibition in Cornwall Life magazine recently: "This exhibition brings together two West Cornwall based painters whose works are defined by a powerful approach to both colour and composition. 
"Simon Pooley's bold compositions and strong draughtsmanship have developed from his years spent working as an architect." 
"Falmouth Art School graduate Alasdair Lindsay has attracted significant international interest since his graduation and his works can be found hanging in private homes throughout the UK, Europe and America. Lindsay's paintings of the Cornwall landscape exhibit the expressive colour and vivid contrast of American abstract artists from the 1950's and have a compositional punch reminiscent of the retro art of advertising illustration."
 Two days after the exhibition opened, we had a rather well known face pop his head around our door.... the Prime Minister decided to visit Penzance and both myself and my artist Simon Stooks, who happened to be in the gallery at the time, were rather astounded to see him!

Simon decided to follow him out of the gallery and have a little chat with him. He gave David Cameron his last Cornwall Contemporary exhibition catalogue and David has promised to come to his exhibition here in 2014 so watch this space.....!





Thursday 25 April 2013

a visit from the local press...

we had a visit from the nice people at The Cornishman this morning to interview and photograph Alasdair and Simon ahead of their private view tomorrow evening


Alasdair's youngest daughter Tess wasn't entirely happy about having her photograph taken however, despite being bribed with chocolate....

the show looks fantastic and we're all looking forward to the private view.  There might even be a spot of tango dancing going on as Simon is a keen dancer and will have his dancing shoes on....


Monday 15 April 2013

I am being expertly assisted in the gallery today by Ghibli. It may look as though he's lying back on the chaise-longue and taking it easy, but I can assure you he's got his paw on the pulse...

we were visited today by Lesley Double who is a journalist for Cornwall Life Magazine and the gallery will be featured in an article in the June issue which is great, really looking forward to seeing it.