Artists From the Peninsular...

Introducing 3 Artists from the Rame Peninsular – Rosie French, Helen Manley and Paul Cain Smith.

Saturday 18th August – October

Rosie French

I have always created art from a very young age and it is a necessary part of my life. I absorb colour and textures wherever I go. The quality of light in Cornwall accentuates the images I choose to paint. I wish to always paint and share my view of the world for others to enjoy.

I grew up in a village situated at the top of South East Cornwall. I studied Graphic Design at Plymouth Collage of Art and Design in the late 90’s and then went on to The Surrey Institute for my degree. I graduated in 2003 with a BA HONs in Graphic Design, this was not the right degree for me as the prospect of ‘creating’ on a computer stifled my creativity. I promptly returned to Cornwall to reignite my passion with painting and develop my style.

I have been known for my mixed media works, using anything to hand but more recently I work in oils also. I still like to reclaim materials to work on such as parts of boat moulds and recycled timber as well as canvas. I pick up photographic memories of close up textures that I find and store the colours and light quality so I can recreate them later. I often see beauty in the hidden dilapidation of the working boat yards, the weather beaten colour pallets draw me in. I like to enlarge the small details for people to experience in my work. Most people would just walk past these bits of ruin and rust I find so captivating.

“Rosie French’s work takes small details from the natural and industrial landscapes surrounding were she lives and recreates them in her own unique and beautiful way.” – Cornish Times 2016

Paul Cain Smith

Paul’s inspiration comes from what he sees around him. Specialising in landscapes, including the Tamar Valley where he used to live; the views from his Gunnislake home, down the gorge and to the rolling hills beyond.

Now he lives on the Rame Peninsula where similar rising and falling hills, with the moors in the distance but the sea close at hand, also feature in his work. There is also the look of land in the South of France where he spends holidays – that brings rich, Mediterranean colours into all his work. He has a wonderful, brave sense of colour and frequently uses the landscape as a vehicle for conveying atmosphere and feelings. In his words, he observes, feels and absorbs the landscapes around his studio and then begins to “…paint those pictures I couldn’t do if I tried.” The result is consequently an exciting adventure, each painting manifesting itself in a different way.

Helen Manley

Helen is an artist and musician based on the Rame peninsula, Cornwall. Wild wanderings through natural landscapes, exploring man-made structures shaped by organic decay and life inform Helens paintings. “The lone explorers’ sense of place is tiny and temporary beside the awe-inspiring world; this powerful sense of the sublime extends beyond this moment of a transient experience and can be re-imagined time and time again”. Helen’s current collections have been shaped by travels to Croatia, Italy, Devon and North Wales. She is inspired by natural shapes, form through decay and erosion, deconstructing the spectrum of colour that forms the hue that we may perceive. She looks at the abstract beauty in nature – “essentially, our visual experience of the world is already in the form of a painting; a two-dimensional projection, and array of line and colour”.