Nickie Carlyon

TREMENHEERE SCULPTURE GARDENS, Nr Gulval, Penzance TR20 8YL

Upstairs Gallery

11 FEBRUARY – 3 MARCH 2023

PRIVATE VIEW 11 February, 2 pm – 4.30 pm.

MY DREAM FOUND IN A PHOTOGRAPH

“My Dream Found in a Photograph ….. I was rootling through a pile of books that had been stored away and found an old photo album from my paternal grandparents who in their early marriage had lived in Northern India. I’ve always had a dream of travelling to Kashmir and to discover the journey they made there over a100 years ago sparked a new venture for my imagined ramblings.

Photographs are a frequent material I use as a resource for the genesis of ideas for paintings, familial ones resonant strongly throughout my work. Along with the photos, are some Indian fabrics that belonged to my grandmother, and I somehow wanted to include them in the images for the exhibition. This in turn made me also research Kashmiri lacquer work, its intricate decoration, fabulous colours and stories.

My idea was to limit my paint palette (a hard and difficult process for me!) for the structure of the story, I’ve used colours from my own memories from a visit I made to India 20 years ago… like a faded recollection or photograph, blurred edges, distant images which are hard to define but leave an essence, I suppose a ghost of the past….. I then selected segments of the painting to place a pattern or a story, with no restriction of colour in these sections; this creates a duality in the painting, a story within a story, layers of time and space, a conflict of stillness and business, a real and imagined life.

EXHIBITION @  CRYPT GALLERY,  Norway Square, St. Ives, TR26 1NA

23 – 29 APRIL 2022  10.30 am – 5 pm

PRIVATE VIEW 2-5PM SUNDAY 24 APRIL
PLEASE COME AND JOIN ME FOR A GLASS OF FIZZ, CHAT & CAKE

IT’S ALL ABOUT THE COLOUR

To me colour exudes joy, excuberance, positivity and a life force.

The scientific definition of colour : it’s a phenomenon of light, defined by hue, lightness and saturation…. From a subjective point of view colour is an emotional response to a memory, dreams, landscape or object.  Its how I see the world in reality, my imagination, and dreams.  This latest series of paintings are my celebration of colour, the subjects are taken from dreaming, photographs, imagination and observation.

Studio 3, Trewidden Studios, Trewidden Gardens, Buryas Bridge, Penzance, TR20 8TT

(use Sat Nav TR19 6AU)

I am opening my studio from Saturday August 29 – 6 September (NOT open on Wednesday 2 September) 11-5 pm. There will be a limit of 2-3 people at a time. We will supply hand sanitizer. Sadly my studio is not disabled friendly but am always happy to bring work to show you.

Look forward to seeing you there! Plenty of car parking and tea rooms are open.

An installation of 50 paintings …. A Meditation in Flowers

Returning to the studio is always a challenge, even more so after the easing of lockdown, a gift of sweet peas, in early June was the start of this new journey. Watercolours/inks have never been my thing, but I watched a live broadcast from the Hay Festival with Jackie Morris, showing her painting a hare from start to finish with washes of watercolours….. it was so meditative, beautifully executed and peaceful, it inspired an investigation with this medium. The other factor of lockdown was my scatter brain, lack of focus and restlessness. My hours’ exercise was a treat to savour for the end of the day, observing the welcome of spring with flowers and birdsong. This new found enthusiasm for the outside led me to also plant seeds in pots for my small patch of decking which is now a flourish of veg and flowers.

These new works are about our external world, the things we take for granted and walk past everyday, I think we have all learnt and now appreciate the small things and how important they are. I am currently sitting on my decking, surrounded by an abundance of green leaves in every size & shape, flowers, colour, vegetables, the scent of honeysuckle & sweet peas wafting on a barmy breeze, bees, butterflies bobbing in and out of flower heads. This is my world now and I am in the now and meditation is all about that process of being in the moment. The 50 paintings are my 50 moments of presence.

These paintings are an antidote to my angst about this crazy year …

There are also many other works available to purchase.

In the past I have created murals in various private house, I have never done one for my own abode ….. Lockdown gave me this opportunity and I had the perfect canvas as the bathroom walls are broken up into framed panels.

A friend sent me images about 25 years ago of frescos in Arkotiri, Santorini, they were from an vast archilogical site which is still being excavated. The House of Ladies had images of women collecting saffron and presenting a gift to the goddess, saffron was a hugely valuable commodity. There were also images of monkeys (which I was obsessed by as a child until one spat at me on a visit to the zoo!!) I have adapted their story to the present, with the monkeys playing with the virus and spreading it …. I know it should have been bats?? I also stencilled some of the hashtags being branded about ….. it’s a story of a moment in time. I’m not sure if it will stay on the bathroom wall but definitely until we are “rid of the pestilence that plagues our lands”! Also note they are very Covid 19 aware with masks & gloves.

Shutters

I found a set illustrated Victorian books of British Birds Eggs and their nests …. I was enthralled by the constructions and variety of nests so copied the illustrations and utilised the photo transfer method I often use in my studio practice. Then I paired the nest with a painting of its relative builder….

Selection of work I’ve been creating  this Spring for Open Studios, using photographs, memory & familial ties …. Love this quote from Kate Reeves Edwards (thank you!) description of my work at Tremenheere: ” She creates a narrative within her canvases, world-building, much like a novelist would, do using colour as a portal into these imaginary spaces.” 

Would love to see you at Studio 3, Trewidden Gardens, Penzance, TR20 8TT.

25 May to 2 June (NOT OPEN ON WEDNESDAY 29 MAY) 11 am – 5 p.m.

Otherwise by appointment contact via phone or email.

Objects, things, possessions we surround ourselves with these, I’ve taken a few from my home or travels, photographed, photocopied and changed their environments, played with the images and given them a dialogue and story. Utterly incongruous and surreal but the joy of play is a quality we forget to do in our so-called adulthood …. But boy I’ve enjoyed playing with imagery, materials and words for titles.

EXHIBITION Daisy Laing, Chapel Street, Penzance

Private View Friday 30 November 6-8
30 November – 30 December
Opening Hours:

Quay Road II

Late this September, Prince & Pilgrim Gallery will be opening up their seaside home in Charlestown, a historical harbourside village in South Cornwall. I will be showing artwork relating to this wonderful place, its history and charm.  If you’re in the area it would be lovely to see you over the weekend.

Quay Road, Charlestown

PREVIEW NIGHT: FRIDAY 22ND SEPTEMBER, 6PM TO 8PM
SATURDAY 23RD AND SUNDAY 24TH SEPTEMBER: 11AM – 6PM
MONDAY 25TH TO THURSDAY 28TH SEPTEMBER: 11AM – 4PM

EXHIBITION – IN MY MOTHER’S FOOTSTEPS – The Engine Room, Exchange Gallery, Princes Street, Penzance.

27 May – 14 July 2017.

My Mum, Elspeth, was born in 1926 on Vancover Island, Canada where she lived until the family moved to the Cornwall in 1933. Recently I found an envelope of negatives, which I had developed, the photographs showed the early days of the life on a smallholding the family owned at the foothill of Tzouhalem mountain and the childhood idle of Elspeth and her brother, Grenville.

Elspeth is now 90, she has dementia, these photographs are memories of a precious and distant time that she remembers with amazing clarity. They prompt conversations, laughter and tears which I have been recording, and every time we look at these together, another recollection like names of the dogs, people and their significance in Elspeth’s early childhood days.

These photographs have also given me a rich source of inspiration for a series of paintings, these are my imaginings of the colour and world where Mum lived. They are between reality and a dream place, they are the past which I am trying to rekindle so Mum can remember.

“Memories are the loveliest thing, they last from day to day.
They can’t get lost, they don’t wear out, and can’t be given away” Anonymous