Shorelines / Caroline Romer
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The exhibition will be available online via : www.ceromerpaintings.com
Opening times & Contact details Mon-Fri 10.30-7pm & Sat 11am-4pm Tel : 07724563501 or 02076367478 carolineveromer@gmail.com www.ceromerpaintings.com & www.coningsbygallery.com
This will be my eighth biennial exhibition at the Coningsby Gallery . This is therefore a good moment to say how much I enjoy exhibiting with them, how generous and friendly the director and team have always been. My up and coming exhibition starts on October 3rd for a week. The title of my show is Shorelines . I live by the sea and when I am not by the sea I am by the river Loire in France. In February of this year I spent a month on the Hebridean island of Colonsay again spending much of my time drawing on the shore ,never far from the shore. I like to work on the spot out in the elements. I think working directly gives one an insight into the true colour and shape of a place and it’s changing constantly of course which becomes part of the challenge. An intimacy can form between the painter and the landscape /seascape that is impossible through just the photographic image. The photo is a wonderful tool but it’s not one’s own vision at all. With one’s own looking come one’s thoughts that break into the mind all the time so the painting, the mind and the subject all are happening together . I very much enjoy another method of making a picture which is bringing together the elements of a place from memory ,drawings and photos and making them work away from the subject. This is how I painted the House on Balerominmhor painting in this exhibition . It’s a long and arduous route full of frustration but ultimately very satisfying if it does “come together “ as a painting . As a painter I have never stuck to one way of doing things indeed as I get older I feel freer to experiment . As an art student I had very fixed ideas about picture making and was a huge devotee to Cezanne . I still admire his work enormously, he worked so hard throughout his life and ended up doing some sublime paintings , his late work is still as new today as it was then. Sitting for hours by La Loire has been and is a wonderful and privileged experience. During lockdown in the Autumn of 2020 I worked on cardboard that was around ,taking it off the street too if I saw a piece I knew would be good to work on. Several of those cardboard paintings are in this show. Shops were closed at the time and materials hard to find ! Other paintings of the Loire became more abstract when I was concentrating on the surface and reflections. Lastly there are a few shorelines paintings of South Devon where I live. Storms and wild seas painted directly from the rocks or cliffs.