15 May – 13 June - Peter Mortimore's “Of birds & things”
Often a finishing touch to a painting can involve placing a bird in just the right position. Be it a white cockatoo on the wing. To place a splash of white against storm clouds. A bright coloured parrot to add life to an area of a work. It can also be simply painting silhouettes on the wing to take the loneliness out of an empty sky.
When working in the studio, I constantly have the sounds of sparrows, silvereyes and blue wrens, chattering away in the undergrowth and shrubs in the garden outside. A glance out of the window always brings an encounter with a bird of some description.
I do wonder whether in our busy lives we are actually aware of their presence. I started some paintings and drawings of birds last year, so when the invitation was forthcoming to be a part of this exhibition, the theme of birds came to mind. I actually started painting horses and birds right at the beginning when first showing my work.
This body of work will be made up of works of many mediums, watercolour, acrylic, oil, mixed media collage, pencil/graphite drawings and etchings.
I intend it to be a visual celebration of these creatures who are ever present in our daily lives, whether we are aware of them or not.
Rebecca McGirr “The Language of Autumn”
Studying art at school, I am constantly bombarded by the language or interpretation of works of art rather than reflecting on its physical presence.
As this exhibition is held in the last month of autumn, autumn became a theme for the exhibition. Yet while coming up with ideas, even the word Autumn, which in its dictionary meaning is one of the four seasons, has become a symbol or language of its own with an immediate reference to colour. Winter=cold, Spring=flowers, Summer=sun and heat, but Autumn=a Cascade of colour.
Birds are busy in autumn collecting berries; butterflies are busy finding a mate to reproduce so the young develop through winter to hatch in spring. Butterflies seem to be far more present in autumn than any time of the year. Autumn is a vibrant time of the year as life prepares for the bleakness of the winter months.
My work will of course be filed with the colours of autumn, but juxtaposed images of birds, butterflies and other objects of this wonderful season.
I will work in acrylic, oil, mixed media collage and etchings.
My aim is to have every painting possess a life of its own but with the colours blending in like fallen leaves upon the cooling ground. ‘’Autumn is the language of colour, colour is the language of Autumn’’
