UPSTAIRS at THE ART SHOP, CROSS STREET 

mixed media paintings, charcoal drawings & relief printmaking

Three captivating responses to the landscape, united by their sense of place in the world, rooted in culture and the ephemeral qualities of light and colour. Maria Pierides draws from her past, formative time in Greece, Sera James Irvine connects to her immediate environment of Tanzania and Kim Atkinson explores the rich coastal wilds of North Wales. Wales is also a common thread running through each artist’s practice.

MARIA PIERIDES – ‘In my paintings, I render in colour the stories of the physical and emotional landscapes that formed my experience of being born in Greece, growing up in Cyprus and England and now living and working in Wales. The actual process of my painting relates to this theme, as I use mixed media, building up and scraping back areas of paint to capture the atmosphere, mass, and light of the landscapes I am trying to depict.

Through my paintings, I explore ways of bringing these landscapes together and play with the similarities and contrasts: How being caught between two time perspectives – the Eastern Mediterranean is two hours ahead of England – two different kinds of light, two different cultures, results in both a feeling of richness and diversity of experience as well as a search for rootedness in the moment and in space. Dusk and the changes in light between sunset and darkness capture this feeling of ‘homelessness’ and the riches of the search for ‘home.’ On the other hand, in the plays of light, in exploring ways of translating experiences and representing them in paint on the canvas, there is a liberating beauty too.’

SERA JAMES IRVINE – Sera was born in North Wales. She was taught by the late Peter Prendergast both at school and on Foundation Course and went on to study ceramics in Camberwell and Cardiff in the late 1980s. After living in Scotland and Ethiopia, she now splits her time between the UK and Tanzania. Sera is best known for her landscape paintings with recurring motifs of trees, skies, and clouds, as well as for contemplative line drawings and monoprints. Her work, which hovers between abstraction and representation, is characterised by bold gestural lines which balance the immediacy of mark making with keen observation.

‘My work is driven by an obsession for capturing the ephemeral – those fleeting, moments of light and movement that transform the everyday into something transcendent. I am excited by the challenge of translating these transient experiences into tangible works. I seek to create spaces that invite contemplation and hold viewers’ attention in a moment of reflection. Currently I am enjoying using soft pastels and charcoal – the direct use of pigments and burnt wood. With a recurring palette of umbers, ochres, cerulean blues, ultramarines and greens, I layer the pigments until the piece is resolved.’

KIM ATKINSON – ‘Living at the tip of Pen Llŷn, with only coastal heath, rocks, and the sea beyond to the west, we inhabit a landscape that is pared back, nearly treeless and almost always windy. Birds which live here either return to Africa to winter, such as Swallows and Wheatears, or tough it out, as do Rock Pipits, Stonechats, Turnstones, Choughs.

The small relief prints were made in winter, in the studio, using thin card cut into shapes and rolled up with oil based inks. They derive from many drawings made out walking and looking at birds. The paintings are on paper, which was primed with acrylic gesso, and incorporate pastel, charcoal and gouache paint. They were made out on the cliffs, facing the Sound between the mainland and Ynys Enlli, Bardsey Island. This stretch of sea, never still, a strong tiderace running either North or South, often has Porpoises, Gannets, Gulls, and Seals, in the winter months, Shearwaters and Auks in summer.’

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