Exhibition
Colin Carruthers, Claire Lovell, Nia Mackeown
8 Jul 2022 – 30 Jul 2022
Regular hours
- Friday
- 10:00 – 17:00
- Saturday
- 10:00 – 17:00
- Sunday
- 11:00 – 16:00
- Monday
- 10:00 – 17:00
- Tuesday
- 10:00 – 17:00
- Wednesday
- 10:00 – 17:00
- Thursday
- 10:00 – 17:00
Free admission
Address
- 74b Albany Road
- Cardiff
Wales - CF24 3RS
- United Kingdom
A trio of artists all inspired by the beauty of every day, coasts and landscapes and the ever-changing light and beauty of nature.
About
The exhibition features Colin Carruthers, Claire Lovell and Nia Mackeown, all of whom take inspiration for their paintings from their love of travel and the beautiful world around them.
Northern-Ireland born Colin Carruthers is a contemporary artist based in England and paints in oils, acrylics and watercolours. He often works with a palette knife, creating textured surfaces by applying paint to the canvas as thickly as possible. The oil paint dries slowly, allowing him to hold layers in which the marks of the palette knife are often still visible – creating interesting and dramatic effects.
When he is not painting in his studio, Colin likes to make trips to the countryside and coast and continues to draw inspiration from his travels. He enjoys the experience of being outdoors and emotionally connecting with the landscape and its surroundings.
His collection of work for this exhibition depicts landscape and seascapes which are intended to convey the ever-changing aspects of nature. His frequent trips to the coast and countryside have deepened his appreciation of the diversity and beauty of the British Isles – and in more recent years, the landscapes of France and Spain.
He says: “I have many memories of country walks which have taken me through many gates, over stiles and streams with amazing views of swaying barley, ripe corn and harvested fields. During the Spring and Summer months there is such an abundance of wildlife. Wild poppies and daisies growing amongst the crops at the field’s edge are always an inspiration to me.
“I enjoy the exercise and fresh air, but each time I undertake a new walk I use the experience of the walk to inform and inspire my paintings. During fine weather I may stop off to spend time sketching and taking photographs, which I find useful to use at a later time in the studio.
“In my work, I’m not attempting to copy nature or the landscape. I’m trying to create a painting that responds to how I feel about it. To create a painting that is alive and that the viewer also shares in that emotion, is important to me. On occasions I write poems in which I attempt to express how I feel about nature and the landscape that surrounds us.”
Claire Lovell’s passion for painting comes from the sights and sounds of walks around her home in Usk as well as her travels to places like Cornwall and France.
She loves the way colours change, light shifts and shadows move, constantly changing throughout the course of a day or a season, even a lifetime and sees painting as an escape from the often-worrying world we are faced with around us.
Claire, who works mainly in oils, says: “I am driven to paint every day, hoping always to paint boldly with a decent sized brush or occasionally palette knives, to convey the excitement I feel by the light and colour all around us, even under grey skies. I work from life, directly onto canvas or via sketches and studies taken while out on my adventures.
“I love visible, rhythmic, dancing brush strokes…indicative of the various music which often accompanies me when painting - textured, light, energetic with passages of calm. My dream is to lift the mood of you, the viewer, and to offer you a more joyful world, a more optimistic and colourful experience than the woeful news we are faced with daily.
“No academics, just my total love and connection to the natural world around us, a powerful awareness of the tender and transient beauty of living things as well as my deep-seated need to create, which I believe is instinctive and vital for the well-being of all of us.”
Nia Mackeown is a Pembrokeshire born artist who is now based in Cardiff. She has a passion for painting “en plein air”. A former midwife, Nia became a full-time artist in 2016 and finds joy in painting the things she loves, from imagery of everyday life, of the endearing commonplace, and landscapes tempered with reflection and light.
While painting, she maintains fresh, reactive mark making which helps her capture the essence of her subject in an instinctive and spontaneous way. Although mainly working in oils on small panels when painting outdoors, these smaller studies are sometimes used to produce larger studio works.
She says: “The work in this exhibition brings together recent paintings of Pembrokeshire, Cardiff, and the surrounding areas of South Wales. Alongside these landscapes I have also included many still life paintings that were completed in my studio in Cardiff. Each artwork has been painted from life using loose brushstrokes to capture the essence of the subject with immediacy and spontaneity. My aim was to celebrate light, colour, and life in South Wales.”