Twll du (Devil’s Kitchen) and the Glyder range above Llyn Idwal, Bethesda The Great Atlantic presents a collection of paintings by Neil Pinkett featuring "The Mountains and Quarries of North Wales" at The Great Atlantic Church Street Gallery, Monmouth from October 18th. Towards Cwm Cywion, Llyn Idwal This introduction, written for the American opening of Neil Pinkett’s exhibition, sets the context for the project that he undertook in the autumn of 2003 and which has been shown at two venues in New England. The mountains of Britain’s North Wales region are more closely linked to the rolling hills of Vermont, Upstate New York and Pennsylvania than the width of the Atlantic Ocean might imply. Michael Jay, The Great Atlantic Map Works Gallery, A nameless quarry near Cadair Idris Farm cottages near Blaenau Ffestiniog Quarry pool near Cadair Idris Rows of cottages, Bleanau “To paint a country is to see it for the first time. A lot of my childhood vacations were spent in North Wales visiting my cousins, but travelling through this part of the world as an artist has proved to be a seminal experience. Lake, mountain, deserted quarry - its all astoundingly beautiful.” Neil Pinkett. Newlyn, Cornwall, March 2004 Neil Pinkett in his studio NEIL PINKETT was born in 1958 in Britain’s most westerly town, St Just-in-Penwith, near Land’s End, Cornwall. He trained in graphic design and worked for several years as a freelance illustrator before taking the path that has established him as a leading British landscape oil painter. He lives in the ancient Cornish town of Penzance and works from his studio in the nearby fishing port of Newlyn.
Thanks to Catherine Thomas for advice on the Welsh language The Great Atlantic Church Street Gallery
neil pinkett
The Mountains and Quarries of North Wales
“Y Mynyddoed a Chwareli yng Nghogledd Cymru”
23” x 34” oil on canvas board £3,750
20 x 17” oil on canvas board £1,195
It is fitting that Neil Pinkett’s body of work “The Mountains and Quarries of North Wales” (Y Mynyddoed a Chwareli yng Nghogledd Cymru) show now be shown at The Great Atlantic Church Street Gallery in Monmouth. These works were shown to some considerable acclaim at The Slate Valley Museum in Granville, NY and the Southern Vermont Arts Centre, Manchester, Vermont.
The Cambrian (Welsh) massif was connected to the same northeast to southwest trending mountain belt that runs from Norway, through Scotland, England, Wales and Ireland, reappearing in the Maritime Provinces of Canada and down the Appalachian Mountain chain along the east coast of the United States. This remnant mountain range predated the present Atlantic Ocean by many millions of years and was created by tectonic plate collisions in the Ordovician and Silurian periods of geological time.
Great thicknesses of compressed sediments, ejected volcanic lavas and ashes and once buried granite masses have been indurated by the passage of up to 500 million years. And several periods of intense glaciation have sculptured the landscapes of these ancient mountains on both sides of the Atlantic.
In particular, valuable outcrops of high quality slate have been worked in North Wales and in the states of Maine, New York, Vermont, and Pennsylvania and from this, a cultural connection has arisen. Among nineteenth century immigrants from all over Europe were significant numbers of slate quarry workers from North Wales.
So, take a mixture of ancient mountain structures, slate and other valuable rock deposits, add an episode or two of glacial erosion and introduce one of Britain’s leading landscape oil-painters and you get a heady brew. Concentrating on elements of “The Mountains and Quarries of North Wales”, Cornish-born artist Neil Pinkett has painted not just the landscape of the region, but its homes, fields and work places, evoking strong images of one of the root cultures of the American Northeast.
St Just-in-Penwith, Cornwall. St David’s Day 2004
18” x 24” oil on canvas board £1,495
18” x 24” oil on canvas board £1,495
18 x 12” oil on canvas board £995
18 x 24” oil on canvas board £1,495
19 Church Street Monmouth NP25 3BX
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