| Sladers Yard Contemporary British Art, Furniture and Craft, Boatyard and Cafˆ© Vanessa Gardiner We are very pleased and proud to welcome Vanessa Gardiner to Sladers Yard. Vanessa works in acrylic on board which she scrubs and abrades with wire wool and sandpaper, building up layers of colour and cutting them back creating endlessly fascinating surfaces. At times she saws up the boards, reassembling them like a jigsaw puzzle, the joins becoming a vital part of the composition, creating her own order out of nature. She is fascinated by architecture and has spent some time painting ancient Egyptian monuments against brilliant blue skies. Her work could be said to create architecture from the natural rocky coastlines which inspire her. The dramatic beauty of Boscastle, on the north Cornish coast, has been her source for many wonderful paintings, the newer ones refined to a sophisticated purity. As a child she visited there many times. Her father, Patrick Gardiner, was an Oxford philosopher who like her mother adored art and poetry. The family explored Britain and Europe, visiting churches and exhibitions creating a foundation of knowledge and memory which Vanessa draws on in many different ways in her work. In 2007 she took up a residency in County Mayo in Ireland which has resulted in new paintings of softer landforms in gorgeous acid greens and blacks against rich blue seas. The show will also include new work based in Portland. ’ÄòFrom a combined English love of picturesque scenery, an appreciation of the more severe, anti-picturesque, architected forms favoured by French and British artists in the early 20th century and of the abstracted landscapes of the 1950s, Vanessa Gardiner has opened up a new vein in an old tradition. She has now refined her ideas to a level of high sophistication.’Äô Judith Bumpus, 2005 Vanessa studied art at the Central School of Art and has exhibited seriously since 1991. She is represented in London by the Hart Gallery. She lives and works in Charmouth in west Dorset with her partner, the painter Alex Lowery, and their daughter Jessie. Sladers Yard, West Bay, Bridport, Dorset DT6 4EL T: 01308 459511 Petter Southall's showroom with Philosophy - Julian Bailey, Derek Nice and Petter Southall - West Bay - Beatitudes featuring Cheryl Campbell - Miranda Creswell's paintings and drawings - West Bay - Beatitudes by David Inshaw - Alfred Stockham, Miranda Creswell and Petter Southall - Out to Sea - Bailey Nice and Southall - The Need to Dream - Vanessa Gardiner - Tim Nicholson - Sladers Yard Christmas Show - Robin Rae
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