Nicholas Turner: To and Fro

Nicholas Turner

front & back cover:

10 Coffee Pot and Lemons (detail)

Nicholas Turner

To and Fro

Jonathan Cooper 20 Park Walk  London  SW10 0AQ t: +44 (0)20 7351 0410 mail@jonathancooper.co.uk jonathancooper.co.uk

Nicholas Tur ner Nicholas Turner’s paintings celebrate some of the simplest yet most satisfying joys in life: a freshly brewed pot of coffee on the kitchen table, the bright zest of a lemon, or flowers plucked straight from the garden. Such pleasures are universal, and timeless, and indeed viewing his work one is struck both by its immediacy and a dawning sense that the scene before us is one recalled, not observed.

Turner trained in Bristol under Stewart Geddes, now President of the Royal West of England Academy, who encouraged him to master the fundamentals of design and colour, and crucially to work outdoors. This dedication to plein air painting marked him out as different from his peers, at a time when many were abandoning representation in favour of abstraction. Now, Turner works mostly in his studio, nestled amidst the beauty of the Welsh countryside, yet as he paints directly on the canvas, without preparatory

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Table with Garden Flowers Oil on linen 39 × 39 ins (100 × 100 cm)

sketches, each picture represents a distillation of memory and imagination, informed by those years spent painting in Bristol, Spain, and the east coast of Scotland, or his numerous artistic pilgrimages to Cornwall.

Like many artists before him, Turner often works on several paintings at once, adding a brush stroke here, a mark there, turning one to the wall, and returning to it months later. Coupled with this, he also returns to similar motifs: the harbour wall, a vase on a tabletop with a view of the sea glimpsed through a window beyond, or the busy chimneys of an industrial landscape. Just as a memory revisited over time changes with each recollection, so too as Turner journeys through the mind’s eye each scene shifts, morphs, and eludes us, suggesting new narratives, or glimpses of the past.

This sense of embarking on a journey through time, of inhabiting both past and present, is entirely deliberate, as too are the frequent references to the St Ives School and the Modern British Artists that are his artistic heroes: Christopher Wood, Alfred Wallis, and Ben Nicholson, among others. Direct yet subtle quotations from their work represent, for Turner, an homage to their dedication and achievements, and imbue his paintings with a sense of wistful nostalgia for a quieter age.

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Headland Oil on board 7.8 × 11.75 ins (20 × 30 cm)

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Flowers and Sail Oil on linen 15.75 × 15.75 ins (40 × 40 cm)

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Figure and Chimney Oil on linen 14 × 18 ins (36 × 46 cm)

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Back and Forth Oil on canvas 31.5 × 31.5 ins (80 × 80 cm)

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Sardines Oil on linen 19.75 × 23.7 ins (50 × 60 cm)

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Blue Boat Oil on linen 15.75 × 15.75 ins (40 × 40 cm)

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Blue Figure Oil on linen 19.75 × 19.75 ins (50 × 50 cm)

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Boats in a Harbour

Coffee Pot and Lemons

Oil on linen 31.5 × 31.5 ins (80 × 80 cm)

Oil on linen 14 × 18 ins (36 × 46 cm)

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Blue Flag Oil on linen 31.5 × 31.5 ins (80 × 80 cm)

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Fisherman and Sail Oil on linen 15.75 × 15.75 ins (40 × 40 cm)

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Yellow Boat Oil on board 11 × 16 ins (28 × 41 cm)

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Harbour with Flowers Oil on linen 31.5 × 31.5 ins (80 × 80 cm)

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Passing Figure with Chimneys Oil on board 19.75 × 23.7 ins (50 × 60 cm)

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White Table with Chairs Oil on linen 39 × 39 ins (100 × 100 cm)

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Figure on a Path to the Sea Oil on board 9.5 × 11.75 ins (24 × 30 cm)

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Figure and Bird on a Path Oil on linen 19.75 × 23.7 ins (50 × 60 cm)

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Blue Boat and Harbour Wall Oil on linen 19.75 × 23.7 ins (50 × 60 cm)

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Figure at Harvest Time Oil on linen 31.5 × 31.5 ins (80 × 80 cm)

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Green Boat Oil on board 15.75 × 15.75 ins (40 × 40 cm)

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Table Oil on linen 31.5 × 31.5 ins (80 × 80 cm)

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Tulips Oil on linen 19.75 × 23.7 ins (50 × 60 cm)

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Figs and Garlic Oil on linen 31.5 × 31.5 ins (80 × 80 cm)

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Three Boats and Headland Oil on linen 19.75 × 23.7 ins (50 × 60 cm)

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Creel and Boats

Boats and Creels

Oil on board 11 × 16 ins (28 × 41 cm)

Oil on linen 19.75 × 23.7 ins (50 × 60 cm)

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Harbour with Chimney and Figure Oil on linen 23.7 × 23.7 ins (60 × 60 cm)

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Table with Bottle Oil on board 23 × 27 ins (58 × 69 cm)

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Lighthouse Oil on linen 19.75 × 19.75 ins (50 × 50 cm)

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Yellow Table Oil on linen 31.5 × 39.5 ins (80 × 100 cm)

Nicholas Turner RWA Born in 1972, in London, Nicholas Turner lives and works in Abergavenny, Wales. After a Foundation Course in Art and Design in Bristol, Nicholas achieved a BA (Hons) in Fine Art from UWE Bristol and in 2003 was elected an Academician of the Royal West of England Academy, serving on its governing council. He has exhibited widely and his work is held in public collections including the Royal Collection, the RWA Permanent Collection, the Talboys Bequest RWA, and numerous private collections across the UK, Japan, USA, Italy and Israel.

Jonathan Cooper 20 Park Walk  London  SW10 0AQ t: +44 (0)20 7351 0410 mail@jonathancooper.co.uk jonathancooper.co.uk

Jonathan Cooper