Mark Edwards - Kitchen Garden, Padmaloke Buddhist Retreat, Surlingham 2007
Exhibition previews: These Valued Landscapes; David Gepp - Imperfect Transcriptions: The 24 Etudes of Frederic Chopin, for Monique; Helen Grove-White:Sea Breathing, all at Oriel Davies Gallery, Newtown, from Saturday, December 13 2008.
Landscape painting through the ages and images of intense scenic beauty feature in a hat-trick of new exhibitions launching at Newtown’s Oriel Davies Gallery on Saturday.
Seven artists contribute work to These Valued Landscapes, which explores the landscape’s shift in value through painting, text, photography, ceramics, sculpture and mixed media.
David Gepp - Opus 25 iii F major, inkjet print, 2008
Taking the Georgian period as a starting point, when the genre was considered to have little economic or critical substance, the display maps its rise through environmental, rural, urban and industrial influence, provoking emotive and personal responses.
David Gepp - Opus 25 vii C sharp minor, inkjet print, 2008
In Imperfect Transcriptions, David Gepp sets vivid colour studies of pastoral scenes against the poetry of RS Thomas and Chopin’s piano pieces, the 24 Etudes.
Contrasting chaos and order, life and death and pain and beauty in a reflection of the ruminations the artist experienced while walking in a forest on the birthday of a friend who had recently died, the deeply personal collection is based around music and the environment.
Paul Scott - Scott's Cumbrian Blue(s): Bombs over Baghdad 2003/2007
North Anglesey artist Helen Grove-White is another exhibitor with a strong feeling for land and sea, and her Sea Breathing work captures the invigoration she feels at being in contact with nature.
Considering breathing as “the ultimate expression of our being”, a video and accompanying soundtrack aim to connect the viewer with the rhythms of the sea in a contemplative, meditative creation.
Helen Grove-White, Sea Breathing, still from video installation, 2007
Exhibitions run until February 14, 2009. Previews on Saturday, December 13, 2008, 3pm-5pm. Tours of These Valued Landscapes and Imperfect Transcriptions on Tuesday, 14 January, 2009 at 12.45pm.
