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Dreaming of the Sea Rosie Colvin
During the spring sunshine of lockdown, in one of the most landlocked counties in the UK, Oxfordshire residents have been dreaming of the sea. For its artists, these yearnings and memories have been expressed in art to evoke in the viewer that wonderful feeling of dipping your toes in the edge of the waves.
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ynsham artist Alison Berrett, for example, describes her love of the coast with a passion evident in her soulful seascapes that capture both the power and energy of the water and the ephemeral quicksilver nature of the ever-changing waves. “Oxfordshire is a beautiful place with expansive skies and the beautiful Cotswold countryside, and I love living here. However, I miss the sea and the freedom of living near the coast. The sea pulls me towards it almost as the gravity of the moon cycles pull the waves in and out with an elemental magnetic force. For me, there is nothing more energising and cleansing than time spent beside it. And even in the most static coastal view, there’s always colour, movement and rhythm. “I grew up by the coast and some of my earliest memories are of my mother taking my siblings and me, dressed warmly and with
OX MAGAZINE JULY 2020
Alison Berrett
pyjamas underneath, down to the seafront when it was a high tide in Weston-super-Mare. There we would watch the waves crashing over the wall, sometimes running away from the sea spray as it erupted like lava towards us. “Later, when a fellow art student and I took ourselves down to Exmouth beach during the terrible storms and made paintings of the sea, I had a revelation about the way I could express myself and respond to the thrill of nature. We were encrusted with sand and the wind was so strong I could only see through a small slit in my scarf which was wrapped tightly around my head. There were some women in the beach cafe opposite looking on in bewilderment, yet it was a turning point for me. The speed at which I had to work and the resultant intuitive and impulsive mark-making are now a central part of all the art I create. “I regularly go to favourite destinations,
