David West, Ebb and Flow: recent paintings and gilded wood carvings
5 March – 17 April 2016 First Floor Rope Gallery, Sladers Yard
David West’s extraordinary talents both as a wood carver and as a painter have realised a visionary peacefulness and contemplative quality in his most recent work. Gilded carvings of the moon and of moonlight on the sea were the first signs of his bringing the mystery and wonder he discovered on a trip to Japan in 2008 back to his own surroundings here in Dorset and these have lead to a fascination with light on the surface of water in all its many manifestations.
David West has lived and worked in Lyme Regis with the River Lim flowing past his studio and garden for 35 years. Both the paintings and the carvings in this show express the movement and qualities of water. The oil paint on his canvases seems almost to disappear at times, as subtle and powerful as water itself. Reductive and quiet in colour and theme, they explore rain on the pavements, the surface of the river, the patterns of rooftops and cast-iron railings seen through mist, to create beautiful peaceful works. The wood carvings combine a subtle use of gold leaf and colour, with the qualities of the bare wood. Lily ponds are brought to life with newts which seem to express the shape and character of the water itself. Moonlight on a wet beach continues to be a rich seam of interest. Both the paintings and the carvings derive from closely observed drawings which he has developed freely.
Michael Bennallack Hart, Dawn to Dusk: landscape paintings
5 March to 17 April 2016 in the ground floor Yard Gallery, foyer and Café
Michael Bennallack Hart was born in 1948 in Sussex. His love and understanding of landscape began during his childhood in the Weald of Kent and has evolved during his travels in the British Isles, Ireland, Europe and the United States. He studied at Ravensbourne College of Art in London from 1966-70. He began his career designing and illustrating film posters and record sleeves, and painting landscapes and sports scenes. In the 70s and 80s he worked as an advertising art director and as an illustrator, while continuing to paint, exhibiting at the Spectrum Gallery in New York. This is his first exhibition at Sladers Yard.
