Shorelines
Jun. 25th, 2005 03:14 pmWent last night to Hartlepool, for an event at the Art Gallery there. The invitation promised an exhibition of prints and paintings by James Dodds, and a reading by Katrina Porteous, whose radio poem Longshore Drift had been published with illustrations by James Dodds. Not knowing the artist, we went because we had enjoyed hearing Katrina Porteous read from Dunstanburgh; so we were disappointed that she never turned up; not, at least, by the time we left, after an hour and a half. Let's hope there is some routine explanation (traffic in the Tyne Tunnel, say, or a mix-up over dates). Meanwhile, we drank a couple of glasses of perfectly pleasant wine, and enjoyed the gallery.
The gallery itself is in fact a converted church, and information boards displayed some information about its history:( which is quite colourful )
It's always a pleasure to see a place of worship being put to a better use, and Christchurch makes a fine Art Gallery, a high, airy space with an attractive gallery and roof.
And the exhibition was a revelation. James Dodds was trained as a shipwright before studying painting, and his subject matter is boats, boatbuilding, the sea and the seaside. Paintings take the bold, simple shapes of rowing boats and translate them into slices of flat colour. The work from a residency documents the restoration of the Pioneer, a nineteenth century fishing boat: a woodcut entitled Pioneer, futtock frames looking aft is displayed with the plywood block from which it was printed, like two matched rib-cages. But the images to which I kept returning were a series of large prints of towns along England's east coast, like Cromer, for example, Aldeburgh and Southwold, with Adnams Brewery clearly marked.
And, speaking of Southwold, happy birthday George Orwell!
The gallery itself is in fact a converted church, and information boards displayed some information about its history:( which is quite colourful )
It's always a pleasure to see a place of worship being put to a better use, and Christchurch makes a fine Art Gallery, a high, airy space with an attractive gallery and roof.
And the exhibition was a revelation. James Dodds was trained as a shipwright before studying painting, and his subject matter is boats, boatbuilding, the sea and the seaside. Paintings take the bold, simple shapes of rowing boats and translate them into slices of flat colour. The work from a residency documents the restoration of the Pioneer, a nineteenth century fishing boat: a woodcut entitled Pioneer, futtock frames looking aft is displayed with the plywood block from which it was printed, like two matched rib-cages. But the images to which I kept returning were a series of large prints of towns along England's east coast, like Cromer, for example, Aldeburgh and Southwold, with Adnams Brewery clearly marked.
And, speaking of Southwold, happy birthday George Orwell!