Peter’s Chichester exhibition invites you to See The Sea
See The Sea is Devonbased Peter Goodhall’s exhibition at Chichester’s Oxmarket Gallery running from Tuesday, September 22-Sunday, October 4.
“This exhibition focuses on the sea in a variety of forms and presentations,” Peter said.
“It’s an exhibition where some of the paintings are so large that you could literally plunge right into or alternatively just dip your toes in for a paddle.
“I’ve had the sea in my life forever and might even have salt in my blood. For as long as I can remember I’ve drawn and painted boats, ships and the sea. For over half of a century I’ve been crafting those painting techniques and as luck would have it for 25 of those years I had a studio right on the top of a Devon cliff. Little wonder my paintings have continued to focus on the sea in all its moods and boats of all shapes and sizes.
“My contemporary paintings of water are often quite large centrepiece canvases that have a high degree of realism. Some are painted to create a fairly smooth surface with meticulous blending of the oil paint. They combine patterns that are of the reflected light and movement together with glimpses of the pebbles underwater. There are other canvases that are much more impressionistic with quite bold, vigorous and impasto brush marks that I use to capture the theatre of strong sunlight on surf.
“These marinescapes all have the painted image extended around the edges of the canvases, gallery wrapped if you want the official term which adds to the contemporary feel. So no frames needed, so simple and so effective! In total contrast there are other canvases of really traditional marine subjects in frames that also have a traditional twist: Thames sailing barges and historical life boat rescues together with other nostalgic subjects. One of these paintings is of the Mayflower and this month marks the 400th anniversary of the Pilgrim Fathers setting off for the New World. I have frequently incorporated historical research into my paintings. It’s another of my interests and have received considerable acclaim over the years for these and likewise for my highly detailed ink drawings of the sea, ships and boats.”
Peter added: “I’ve been a professional artist all my working life and during that time I have had paintings in exhibitions around the globe and have been commissioned from some far-flung places and also picked up a few international awards along the way. One of my more recent awards was the American Art Awards competition where I won the Masterpiece award for one of my paintings from the series of female nudes swimming in the sea. This exhibition does include some paintings and limited edition prints from this series of paintings. The paintings from the whole series are titled Liberty and such a title does seem rather appropriate for swimming naked in the sea. Once again the focus is on the patterns and distortions created by the movement of the water.
“I’m a fine arts graduate and in the 1970s my art school days were very much influenced by the photorealism movement.
“My paintings are still strongly in the realism category and my historical narrative paintings are clearly influenced by the Newlyn School in choice of subject and painting style: it’s there that you can really see the importance of the sea and fishing boats.
“My first exhibition was in 1980, followed by many more and also inclusion in Societies like the Royal Marine Society of Artists, the West of England Academy, the South West Academy and the Mystic Maritime Museum in the USA.
“Both the RAF and the
Royal Navy have paintings of mine and there are loads of commissioned paintings out there too.”