Artist Gerald explores North Wales landscapes
THIS week we talk to artist Gerald Dewsbury, whose work is on display at Ffin y Parc, Llanrwst, and online.
Q Where are you from? Tell us about your family
A I struggle with the first question as I was born in Dartford, but lived there for only 6 months, so I remember nothing of it and it means nothing to me ..... I have lived in North Wales for 40 years. I am married to Kim and I have two grandchildren named Iestyn and Osian.
Q What are you best known for?
A I guess I am best known as a landscape artist – a painter of wild and solitary places, those undisturbed moss and lichen covered woods or boulder strewn moorlands, perhaps.
Q Tell us about your exhibition
A The exhibition is being displayed at the premiere venue, Ffin y Parc Gallery near Llanrwst. It started on 21st June as a virtual show, to be viewed on the internet. This is still possible but now of course, some people can visit the exhibition in person, which is great. It continues to the 15th July, and I have produced 60 new works for the show.
Q When is it running from/to?
A Sunday, June, 21 to Wednesday, July 15 2020
Q What can people expect from it?
A It is an exhibition of 60 new paintings featuring the land and seascapes of North Wales. It is a joint exhibition along with my artist wife Kim Dewsbury.The paintings portray a range of different subjects, from vast seascapes and skyscapes to intimate examinations of the moss under my feet, and even one painting looking at what is under that moss! I want you to share in those visions and enable you to enter those different worlds.
Q Tell us five things which make your exhibition great?
A It is an exhibition of paintings featuring
landscapes of North Wales, mainly of those places that I love to go to and explore.There are, in the current climate, perhaps more paintings based upon the area in close proximity to where I live and also some done completely from memory and imagination. Some paintings catch a fleeting moment; others show the effects of years of slow growth or decay.
Q Tell us what’s good about the venue
A The welcome at Ffin y Parc is always a jolly one
and it is a perfect setting for displaying art. It is not the ultra bright white cube found in many galleries but a home.
Q Who is your favourite artist and why? A
My favourite artist remains my boyhood hero, Samuel Palmer, whose intimate and idiosyncratic visions of a small piece of countryside were composed in black and white on relatively small pieces of paper. These evoke the vast and all encompassing presence of the ‘life spirit’ akin to that in the grand design of a Gothic Cathedral.
Q What work are you most proud of? Why? A
In this exhibition perhaps I am most proud of the painting ‘On the Rocks now’. This painting relates to work by two former painters, Friedrich the German
Romantic and Courbet the French Realist, as well as the modern day predicament of life and climate change. My painting is based on a fear I always have when painting close to the sea; of being so engrossed in what I am doing I do not notice the big wave or being cut off by the tide.
Q What are you working on, or what do you plan to work on?
A I am a professional artist and the rent always needs paying! I am constantly working and planning for that next exhibition.