Suki Wapshott - November Featured Artist at Whitewater Gallery

Suki Wapshott

NOVEMBER | FEATURED ARTIST

About Suki

This November sees a special exhibition of work by painter Suki Wapshott, which responds to the artist’s experience of this turbulent year.

Suki studied English at Oxford University before becoming one of North Cornwall’s most recognised painters. Language and landscape have been equally influential in her work as with this collection but added are works inspired by the poems that have resonated with her during lockdown and the pandemic. Poems of confinement, loss of freedom, love, hope and isolation such as ‘The Caged Bird’ by Maya Angelou, ‘To Bless the Space Between Us’ by John O’Donohue and ‘Desire is of Flight’ by Emily Dickinson, have each inspired a corresponding painting.

The final lines of “To Bless the Space Between Us” by John O’Donohue: ‘Where air will be kind/And blushed with beginning’. To me these words suggest warmth and hope.

Blushed with Beginning Oil on Linen Canvas Image: 90cm x 90cm Frame: 104cm x 104cm £3,645

Inspired by O’Donohue’s lines I decided to use a warm palette of blush pinks, which resulted in my landscape paintings ‘Blushed with Beginning’, ‘Soft Pink’ and ‘Baby Pink. Contrary to the initial subject within the blessing apparently being ‘separation, I felt there was great optimism for a fresh beginning.

Soft Pink Oil on Linen Canvas Image: 40cm x 40cm Frame: 53cm x 53cm £825

The three paintings ‘Blushed with Beginning’, Soft Pink’ and ‘Baby Pink’ suggest a new day, a new eve or even a new life and positivity.

Baby Pink Oil on Linen Canvas Image: 50cm x 50cm, Frame: 63cm x 63cm £1,125

Again inspired by the same work ‘To Bless the Space Between us’. In ‘Invisible Bridges’ there are two tiny figures separated by a seemingly impossibly wide gulf but I imagine an invisible bridge between them, a connection unbroken and strengthened by love, understanding and shared experience.

Invisible Bridges, To Bless the Space Between Us Oil on Linen Canvas Image: 40cm x 40cm Frame: 53cm x 53cm £825

The classic poems “Delight is of flight’ and “‘Hope’, The Thing with Feathers”, both by Emily Dickinson, and “The Caged Bird” by Maya Angelou have inspired the following four paintings in this brochure.

‘Flight reminds us of the ‘ratio’ of life as does the Venerable Bede in ‘The Ecclesiastical History of the English People’ AD 731, likened the span of human life to that of ‘the swift flight of a sparrow through meadhall in winter’. I see the changing shades to the seagull being alike to the lights and shades of life.

Flight Oil on Linen Canvas Image: 50cm x 50cm Frame: 63cm x 63cm £1,125

‘Passing By’ continues the theme of life span but also a bird full of strength, determination and regarded by the Native Americans as a symbol of a carefree attitude, versatility and freedom.

Passing By Oil on Linen Canvas Image: 50cm x 50cm Frame: 63cm x 63cm £1,125

‘And sore must be the storm That could abash the little Bird’ These lines from ‘Hope’ is the Thing with Feathers’ apt for these times whilst we weather the storm of a pandemic. I recalled memories of reading about the smallest Stormy Petrel only about four inches long which feeds on the oceans surface no matter the conditions and is best looked for in spring and autumn in onshore gales in the North West of England or Scotland.

Petrel Grey Oil on Linen Canvas Image: 80cm x 80cm Frame: 93cm x 93cm £2,880

‘The Caged Bird’ by Maya Angelou reminds one of those who have been trapped or had their freedom curtailed; but perhaps it should be remembered that the freedom some have cried for has been from a cage that is not a prison, unlike that of the ‘fettered and clipped bird’ of the poem.

The Caged Bird Oil on Canvas Paper Image: 23.5cm x 34.5cm Frame: 54.5cm x 65cm £825

“The Orange’ by Wendy Cope. A poem of enjoyment, fulfilment and love, and inspired me to paint a corresponding work in response to the contented and happy final line. ‘I love you; I’m glad I exist.’ Bright ebullient colours full of zest.

The Orange Mixed Media on Linen Canvas Image: 50cm x 50cm Frame: 63cm x 63cm £1,125

A previously unknown writer, Kitty O’Meara wrote “And the People Stayed at Home’ which went viral on social media and prompted me to celebrate the joy and ingenuity many have seen with people entertaining neighbours singing and playing various musical instruments.

And the People Stayed at Home Oil on Linen Canvas Image: 40cm x 40cm Frame: 53cm x 53cm £825

During lockdown we were allowed to exercise once a day and those times were precious. Pebble Beach owes nothing to poetry and is a complete response the idyll of the Cornish coast.

This day I met a

young man and his toddler taking their daily walk just the three of us on the beach. The light was dazzling and colours so bright and the silent stillness was beautiful.

Pebble Beach Oil on Linen Canvas Image: 90cm x 90cm Frame: 104cm x 104cm ÂŁ3,645

The next five paintings sketched and painted at moments throughout the year. ‘Moorland Strike’. Fleeting light and that moment gone in a short time.

Moorland Strike Oil on Linen Canvas Image: 40cm x 40cm Frame: 53cm x 53cm £825

Every morning I walk our dogs, Freddie and Daisy. We are very lucky to have footpaths across The Point on which to walk. I love Brae Hill and the low autumn light which skims the tops of the trees and the hill.

From the Point to Brae Hill Oil on Linen Canvas Image: 40cm x 40cm Frame: 53cm x 53cm ÂŁ825

Again dog walking and we are about to turn on to the airstrip at The Point, just behind the third tee.

Every year I watch the leaves

change and the light catch the underside of the leaves turning silver whilst the dried and dead grasses turn a burnished gold.

Precious Nature (behind the third tee) Oil on Linen Canvas Image: 50cm x 50cm Frame: 63cm x 63cm ÂŁ1,125

I had sketched the forms on to canvas but was unsure of the palette I wanted until I heard a wonderful piece of music on Radio Three inspired by the Highlands and I knew Heather Music would be the title before I started;.

Heather Music Oil on Linen Canvas Image: 60cm x 60cm Frame: 74cm x 74cm ÂŁ1,620

Glorious Polzeath whatever the weather.

Sunrises and sunsets are

spectacular and worthy subjects for paintings and photographs and then there are the many forgotten moments of grey and the everyday life of a winter beach.

Beautiful Day Every Day Oil on Linen Canvas Image: 60cm x 60cm Frame: 74cm x 74cm ÂŁ1,620

Simple Thrift is a deliberately stylised painting. The world stopped and stood aghast and it felt as if nothing moved but still the Thrift returned to the cliffs.

Simple Thrift Oil on Linen Canvas Image: 40cm x 40cm Frame: 53cm x 53cm ÂŁ825

The following three paintings are works of light and reflection on beloved Polzeath beach. “Pentire Grey’ a quiet moment. Creating the impression of texture is an important aspect of my beach scapes and the use of light and shade guides the quality of the reflections.

Pentire Grey Oil on Linen Canvas Image: 60cm x 60cm Frame: 74cm x 74cm £1,620

‘Together’. A quiet moment for a couple on a deserted Polzeath beach.

Together Oil on Linen Canvas Image: 40cm x 40cm Frame: 53cm x 53cm £825

Polzeath beach where the lightfall catches the textures of the receding tide. My love of light and its effects on the beach is a recurrent theme, I want to give the impression of texture and the myriad of colour that occurs in nature. I love to see how the pigments interact, balance and fuse thus creating new tonal qualities my mind wishes to see and often not as nature intended

Newland Grey Oil on Linen Canvas Image: 40cm x 40cm Frame: 53cm x 53cm ÂŁ825

Often I turn to the angular when painting North Cornwall and when one analyses the structures of rocks and cliffs and adds the ever present horizon geometric shapes appear.

And as all who know this coast

weather patterns are swift to change and can create further geometric possibilities.

New Perspective Oil on Canvas Board Image: 25cm x 25cm Frame Size: cm x cm ÂŁ595

Again a geometric style of work with streams, rivulets, sea; the sun, clouds and rain when walking down from Pentire Glaze Farm.

King’s Blue Light Oil on Canvas Board Image: 40cm x 40cm Frame: 53cm x 53cm £825

New Horizons, twelve suns for twelve new months which may not be as bright as this painting and this returns to the theme of Hope.

New Horizons Oil on Linen Canvas Image: 40cm x 40cm Frame: 53cm x 53cm ÂŁ825

I lost the sense of time during lockdown as did many. Times of day seemed to flex and distort whilst time itself slowed. Time has been a recurring theme in a couple of early works. The breaking of the clock face eliminates the restrictions of time but also highlights that ‘Time is out of joint’, a dislocated time.

Strange Times Oil on Linen Canvas Image: 40cm x 40cm Frame: 53cm x 53cm £825

Originally the theme of the lampshade hanging over Polzeath beach was inspired by ‘Anyone lives in a pretty how town’ by e e cummings.

The syntax of the poem is jumbled to defy traditional construct but by doing so gives a fresh perspective on the life of a couple in a pretty town. Now we are living in jumbled times so standing together beneath one light, socially distanced, gives new hope for the future.

Standing United Oil on Canvas Paper Image: 33cm x 24cm Frame: 64cm x 55cm £825

The Parade, Polzeath, Cornwall, PL27 6SR 01208 869301 | art@whitewatergallery.co.uk www.whitewatergallery.co.uk @WhitewaterPolz