Nick Bodimeade: Southern Winds Catalogue

Nick Bodimeade: Southern Winds

An exhibtion of Arizona fire & wind ravaged forests and Texas Pole Houses

Cover image: Sedona Wind oil on linen 117 x 148 cm

Nick Bodimeade Southern Winds 2 to 30 May 2015 at Zimmer Stewart Gallery 29 Tarrant Street Arundel West Sussex BN18 9DG tel: 01903 882063 email: info@zimmerstewart.co.uk

www.zimmerstewart.co.uk

Pole House 4 Framed oil on board 28 x 22 cm

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arly last year whilst most of America was in the grip of crippling snow and ice I drove across the southern states mostly hugging the gulf of Mexico.

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t Galveston, Holly and Jamaica beaches I found hundreds of newly built, confectionery coloured pole houses on plots cleared by Ike and Katrina, waiting for their own test of wind and water.

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he visual evidence of huge elemental forces was a constant travelling companion.

later headed north for a while, exploring the snow dusted, fire and wind ravaged, ponderosa pine forested hillsides near Sedona, Arizona that provide the second strand of work in this show.

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ainters paint what they can and they select subjects accordingly. The pole houses here provide structure and a relationship to the rectangle and the mountains and forests layer space and light - these ingredients activated by the disorderly pictorial winds of gesture and mark.

Nick Bodimeade

Fire Mountain 1 oil on linen 106 x 157 cm

Magenta Traverse framed oil on linen 106 x 157 cm

Slide Rock framed oil on linen 106 x 157 cm

Sedona Traverse oil on linen 81 x 71 cm

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esidents of the ponderosa pine forests of the South West, Arizona are used to fires ravaging the millions of acres of national forest. In fact in some cases it is encouraged to manage these magnificent mountain woodlands.

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he ponderosa pine is one of the many western conifer species that is well adapted to and actually requires the presence of periodic low-intensity fires in its ecosystem to successfully regenerate and persist. [Wallace Covington, professor of forest ecology at Northern Arizona University]

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efore man’s intervention, and up to about 100 years ago, during the dry summer months forest fires raged, started by lightning and were Nature’s way of thinning the forest.

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hen the brush on the ground becomes too thick and young saplings threaten to “over populate” the forest, regular annual thunder storms would catch on the brush, burning almost everthing at the lower levels. Mature taller trees would remain green at the tops, survive and then recover within a few years. This produces hillside meadows alive with a rich variety of wildflowers, birds and butterflies.

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owever this process is now a threat to the many people who live or holiday in this region, and so the fires are managed.

re-emptive clearing is known as “treating” the forest and this has reduced the extent of fire damage to houses. But when the forest is too dense by over crowding in un-treateed areas this leads to crown fires as well destroying large areas.

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fter the fires have burned the ground is black and you can see the remains of trees and brush still smoldering. This creates a kind of lunar landscape with ash everywhere broken only by charred trunks rising up.

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n September 8, 1900, a devastating hurricane destroyed most of the island city of Galveston, Texas, along with the lives of more than 6,000 men, women, and children. The storm reduced what was then considered “the center of commerce for the entire Southwest” into a mountain of driftwood.

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espite this tragedy, many Galvestonians were determined to rebuild their city. An ambitious plan was developed to construct a wall against the sea, link the island to the mainland with a reliable concrete bridge, and raise the level of the city. While the grade was raised beneath them, houses were perched on stilts and residents made their way through town on elevated boardwalks.

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alveston became a “city on stilts.” While Galvestonians worked to rebuild the infrastructure of their city, they also continued conducting business and participating in recreational activities.

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any of these homes on stilts or Pole Houses, were destroyed again by hurricane Katrina and Ike, but rebuilt again.

hose that stood their ground allowed residents to survive by climbing into attic spaces and onto roofs.

Pole House 15 - Framed oil on board 26 x 20 cm Pole House 17 - Framed oil on board 20 x 20 cm

Pole House 9 - Framed oil on board 25 x 20 cm Pole House 6 - Framed oil on board 20 x 25 cm

Pole House 1- Framed oil on board 20 x 23 cm Pole House 10 - Framed oil on board 25 x 20 cm

Pole House 12 - Framed oil on board 26 x 20 cm

Pole House 16 - Framed oil on board 17 x 17 cm Pole House 3 - Framed oil on board 28 x 22 cm

Pole House 14 - Framed oil on board 25 x 20 cm Pole House 13 - Framed oil on board 20 x 22 cm

Pole House 7 - Framed oil on board 28 x 22 cm

Pole House 11 - Framed oil on board 25 x 20 cm back page: Pole House 2 - Framed oil on board 28 x 20 cm

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ick Bodimeade is a painter & printmaker of everyday life, the familiar, often intimate scenes we all see. That is not to say the paintings are commonplace; his subjects include structures, beach scenes, dogs and lorries. These are chance, random and perhaps unexpected sights.

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omposition is important in all of these works, Nick Bodimeade encourages the viewer to move his/her eye over the painting using diagonals, horizontals, negative/positive space as well as focal points.

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ick Bodimeade is seemingly able to present his subjects with the minimum amount of information. utlines are created with “negative painting� where the background is painted around the objects/figures.

ight also plays a pivotal role in the works, with shadows and highlights, with expressive use of paint and colour.

he paintings are well observed and executed by an artist now well established across the South of England, with regular exhibitions in St Ives, Chipping Campden, Lewes, London and with the Zimmer Stewart Gallery.

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ick Bodimeade has extensive teaching and advisory experience at a number of UK art colleges at Foundation, HND, BA and MA levels: Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College; University College Chichester; Canterbury Christchurch University College; Amersham & Wycombe College; Northbrook College, Worthing & North Oxfordshire College of Art and Design, Banbury.

Zimmer Stewart Gallery 29 Tarrant Street Arundel West Sussex BN18 9DG tel: 01903 882063 email: info@zimmerstewart.co.uk

www.zimmerstewart.co.uk