Western Morning News (Saturday)
Lights shine brightly at this gallery’s winter show
Artists often talk about the quality of the light. Frank Ruhrmund says for one, it is essential
While the special quality of light which we enjoy in this part of the world has played a significant part in making it a Mecca for artists, it is of course of more importance to some than others. For Nancledra-based artist Peter Freeman, for instance, it must surely be the alpha and omega of his existence. One whose Light at the End of the Tunnel was a feature of the 1997 St Ives International Exhibition, and who gained his MA in Fine Art at Goldsmiths and also studied Light and Architecture at The Bartlett, University of London, in the 1990’s, for a number of years, as Michael Gaca, director of the Belgrave Gallery, St. Ives, informs us, it has become something of a custom at the start of the new year for the artist to make two of his works especially for the gallery. This he has now done, and both neon tube pieces on plaster bases Nanjizal and Colour Space, can be seen online along with the pictures and ceramics that make up the gallery’s major exhibition Winter 2020. Talking of neon, one of the noble gases discovered by the chemists William Ramsay and Morris William Travers in 1898, and of LED, light -emitting diode, Peter Freeman says: “Light is a medium of our being and imagination. The eye and the brain transform invisible photons into the beautiful visible world we see. Electric light and digital technology give us the possibility of imagining new luminous cities and landscapes. Living in West Cornwall surrounded by by the Atlantic Ocean, sunlight is reflected between sky, sea and land, and there is a special clarity and intensity of light that is radiant and uplifting. I think of this as the spirit of light and it is this spirit that I try to reflect in my sculpture and light installations. During this strange year, during lock down, I’ve been appreciating how lucky we are to live in West Cornwall, and have been feeling a strong connection to the granite, sea and sky, and have been looking for structured light forms and colours to embody the emotional reality that I feel in the landscape.” His Nanjizal, as he tells us, “Came from swimming off the beach at Nanjizal recently, and looking up at the granite cliffs stacked against the power of the waves. The feeling was one of verticality, solidity, and fluidity, a language between what appears to be permanent and what is changeable. The colours and forms were exhilarating. It feels a strange practice to transfer landscape into light, but in the moment the experience was totally luminous.”
Made of three intersecting planes of light, his Colour Space, as he says, is “an attempt to create a luminous space reflecting an emotional response to the landscape that is radiant, ambiguous, joyful, colourful, and weightless.” With Peter Freeman’s customary and extraordinary skill it does this and more.
All the pictures and ceramics in Winter 2020 , from W. Barns-Graham’s Beach and Jessica Cooper’s Little Plant to Henretta Dubrey’s White Track, Sharp Red and John Emanuel’s Figure & Fruit can be seen on the gallery’s web site until the end of January.