'Capturing the Light' by Cate Hall & Rosalyn Alexander

About

ROSALYN ALEXANDER​

Rosalyn Alexander's love of art, film and architecture has been a constant source of creativity in her career and after raising her four children along side a career in education, she now devotes her artistic practice to a long held passion - painting in water colour.
Capturing the light at different times of day and its interplay with architecture and urban life, Rosalyn creates dramatic compositions with emotive contrasts between light and shadow. Although initially using a full colour palette, she became interested in colour theory and was fascinated by the possibility of working exclusively with the three primary colours. Rosalyn discovered by observation and experimentation, this produced a more harmonious image and the works in this exhibition demonstrate her success with this exploration of limitation. 
Rosalyn has a BA in The History of Art and Architecture and a MA in Film and Communication from Queen Mary University, London. In 2017 her painting of St Ives Bay, Cornwall was selected for the final round of judging for the Sunday Times Watercolour Competition.​

CATE HALL

Cate began exploring watercolours exclusively five years ago, wanting to master the volatile and quixotic nature of the medium. She relishes the challenge of working with paint -which seem to have a mind of its own - and the often surprising results to be gained by working with an open mind,​ letting the colours mingle at will. 'It's a constant battle to understand the nature of the pigments, how they work together and sometimes fight against each other and how to make the paint ‘behave’ to achieve the desired image.' Cate's mastery in this is seen in the works on display, which capture the light of the Cote d’Opale in northern France where she spends much of her painting time.​

The Somme Series in this exhibition grew from a desire to explore the seasonal changes of the dramatic, and often sombre, interplay of light and shadow on the ever changing landscape of sea and sky that is the Baie de Somme. It has developed 'into something just short of an obsession'Cate says, and a subject she never tires of painting. On the one hundredth anniversary of the end of the First World War, the series pays homage to the men who died on the battle fields of the Somme and to Cate’s grandfather who fought in the Great War and taught her to draw before she could write.

The exhibition also includes paintings where Cate has started to work with watercolours capturing the individual light of southern Europe and the rich, vibrant colours of its towns and landscapes. These paintings are a departure from the painting of northern France using a wider colour palette and a more controlled technique but with the same intention of being true to the light.

Cate has participated in group exhibitions and completed a number of commissions together. This is her first exhibition to show a series of paintings.