The Great Atlantic group of galleries is delighted to welcome the return of Paul Lewin. Paul has been exhibiting with us since we first opened the Map Works Gallery in St Just-in-Penwith in 1996 and, for a time, was our first Director of Art.
Paul Lewin was born in Manchester in 1967. He studied at Stockport College and went on to complete a BA (hons) degree in Fine Art at Bristol Polytechnic in 1989.
Since leaving college he has lived and worked in the South West of Britain, and he now lives near Bideford, North Devon. A fluent “en plein air” painter, his work has developed in response to the characteristic coastal fringes of the south-west peninsula. In exploring its rugged coastlines and wild interiors of moorland and valleys, the resulting works evoke a strong sense of atmosphere, through a sensitivity to the changing light and weather conditions.
Of his working method, the poet Christine Evans has written “His relationship with landscape is intense; he seems absorbed, almost subsumed into it, driven by a restless energy that is characteristic of the sort of places he is drawn to - the extreme edges of land, jutting promontories and tidal shores where frontiers between land and sea are blurred and perspectives ever changing as the sky. His practice is to complete a painting at a single sitting if possible. Sometimes a piece will resolve itself quickly, in a couple of hours or so; more often, he will be working out in the open for five or six hours or until the light goes.”
In October 1999 and June 2000 Paul spent time as resident artist on Ynys Enlli (Bardsey Island) situated off the coast of North Wales. This experience amongst a small and very remote farming and fishing community, culminated in an exhibition at Oriel Plas Glyn-y-Weddw in North Wales during October 2000.
Recently Paul has begun to use a locally historic pigment called “Bideford Black”. By collecting the raw material from a seam of the coal-like substance that runs close to his Bideford studio, processing it into paints and pastels, and then returning to the landscape to work with it, he completes a circle that enriches and informs his paintings. The Burton Art Gallery and Museum in Bideford has recently purchased one of these paintings for its permanent collection.
His paintings can be found in collections throughout the UK, Germany, Mexico, USA, Australia and the Far East. One recent commission included six works for Cunard which are hung in their new cruise liner, Queen Mary II, launched in 2004. Paul has taught a number of school groups on their field trips to the West Country and he continues to exhibit throughout the Southwest, London and elsewhere in the UK.
Paul Lewin’s on-going “Zawn Project”:
“Zawn is a Cornish word for a chasm or cleft. They can be found all around the coast of West Cornwall, and are characterised as narrow fissures in the cliffs. I have been interested in these places since I first got to know the coast of West Penwith, and they have been a subject I have constantly returned to. This exhibition contains some paintings which form part of a personal, ongoing project to visit and record the particular light and spatial qualities of a number of zawns.”
May, Back Lane
22.5 x 12” 57 x 31cm mixed media on paper
Trewellard Zawn
29.5 x 21.5” 75 x 55cm mixed media on paper
Enys Zawn
21.5 x 29.5” 55 x 75cm mixed media on paper
Across August Moors to Dunkery
11.5 x 12” 29 x 31cm mixed media on paper
Path up to Dunkery Beacon
12 x 13” 31 x 33cm mixed media on paper
Showers and Heather, Lands End
8 x 17” 21 x 43cm mixed media on paper
Hartland Penninsula
12 x 22” 30 x 56cm mixed media on paper
The North Coast, Winter Grey
10 x 14” 25 x 35cm mixed media on paper
Stamps an Jowl Zawn
29.5 x 21.5” 75 x 55cm mixed media on paper
De Narrow Zawn
29.5 x 21.5” 75 x 55cm mixed media on paper
Zawn Kellys
21.5 x 29.5” 55 x 75cm mixed media on paper
Gimble Porth
24 x 24” 61 x 61cm oil on canvas
July Meadow, Chaltaborough
12 x 11” 31 x 28cm mixed media on paper
Morning Meadow, Chaltaborough
12 x 11” 31 x 28cm mixed media on paper
Summer Oak Meadow
17.5 x 22” 45 x 56cm mixed media on paper
Summer Oak Meadow 2
17.5 x 22” 44 x 56cm mixed media on paper
Croyde Fields
11 x 10” 28 x 26cm mixed media on paper
Ragwort, Baggy Point
12.5 x 9” 32 x 22.5cm mixed media on paper
Rocky Lane Hedgerow, August Morning
14 x 12” 36 x 30cm mixed media on paper
South from Dunkery
10 x 13” 26 x 33cm mixed media on paper
Rushy Porth, Tresco
39.5 x 39.5” 100 x 100cm oil on canvas
Smoothlands
21.5 x 29.5” 55 x 75cm mixed media on paper
High Tide, Bear Rock
16.5 x 22” 42 x 56.5cm mixed media on paper
Zawn Reeth
29.5 x 21.5” 75 x 55cm mixed media on paper
Castle Zawn with the Wreck of the Mulheim
16 x 12” 41 x 30cm mixed media on paper
River Cove from Trevegga Cliff
12 x 12” 31x 31cm mixed media on paper
Down to Stanbury Mouth
12 x 10.5” 31 x 27cm mixed media on paper
Zawn Gamper
21.5 x 17.5” 55 x 45cm mixed media on paper
Zawn Quoits
47 x 39.5” 120cm x 100cm oil on canvas
From the Limekiln, Greencliff
12 x 22” 30 x 56cm mixed media on paper
19th - 30th November 2005
