Vanessa Gardiner, 'Coastal Forms' by Sarah Macdonald Brown

VANESSA GARDINER

VANESSA GARDINER Coastal Forms

13 – 30 April 2021 PREVIEW DAY Tuesday 13 April 12pm – 6pm By Appointment only, please contact us to book your Private Viewing

The entire exhibition can also be viewed at www.thackeraygallery.com All work is available to purchase on receipt of this catalogue

18 THACKERAY STREET

KENSINGTON

| LONDON W8 5ET

www.thackeraygallery.com | enquiries@thackeraygallery.com | 020 7937 5883

Coastal Forms Vanessa Gardiner is expert at recognising and depicting the geometry in nature. Her paintings are full of coastal light and the way the sea engages the shore in an endless dialogue. In a sense the sea draws the landscape, excavating it and caressing it over centuries, sculpting it into the most intricate and specific shapes. Gardiner identifies this elemental relationship and makes it the focus of her imagery: history and geology play their roles too, and her paintings incorporate a sense of other disciplines, especially archaeology and architecture. These various energies and components are resolved into a still image which yet also contains movement. There are no storms in Gardiner’s work, the underlying drama is more important: the age-old stand and shift of rock, the relentless attack of the tide. The surface calm masks this conflict of forces, implied by her characteristic acute angles rather than described. If you run your fingers lightly over one of Gardiner’s paintings (not recommended unless you actually own one, of course), you can feel incised lines and surface texture built into the image. This is like the underlying structure of the landscape she evokes so well. Gardiner’s crisply authoritative abstract shapes and beautifully worked surfaces combine with her resonant colour to make images of serenity and power.If the inlets and bays she paints so evocatively are celebrated through her understanding of the interplay of geometry and nature, her paintings are also vessels of light, containers of clarity, rhythm and balance. They speak to us of recollected action, of experience sifted through memory. Their radiance moves and beguiles us.

Andrew Lambirth, 2021

Tintagel Coast 1 acrylic on board – 32 x 61cm 3

Headlands 4 acrylic on plywood – 93 x 183cm

Harbour Entrance 4 acrylic on plywood – 30 x 30cm 6

Harbour 7 acrylic on plywood – 24 x 30cm

Gull Rock

Gull Rock 3 acrylic on board – 25 x 35cm 7

Godrevy Point 49 acrylic on plywood – 42 x 106cm 8

Gull Rock 7 acrylic on board – 63 x 155cm 9

Headlands Drawing 1 pencil on paper – 26 x 42cm 10

Headlands Drawing 2 pencil on paper – 25 x 42cm 11

Sea Wall (Trevalga) 2 acrylic on plywood – 30 x 46cm 12

Gull Rock

Gull Rock 5 – acrylic on board – 26 x 64cm 13

Godrevy Point 48 acrylic on plywood – 93 x 48cm

Cliff Wall 35 acrylic on plywood – 80 x 122cm

From Left to Right: Gull Rock 4 acrylic on board – 25 x 35cm Harbour 12 acrylic on board – 25 x 35cm Tintagel Coast 8 acrylic on board – 25 x 35cm

Sea Wall (Trevalga) 20

Sea Wall (Trevalga) 1 acrylic on board – 37 x 58cm 21

Cliff Wall 33 acrylic on board – 25 x 63cm 22

Path Line 33 acrylic on board – 52 x 61cm 23

Vertical Coast 12 acrylic on board – 122 x 80cm

Two Headlands 3 – acrylic on paper – 73 x 111cm 26

Tintagel Coast 3 acrylic on paper – 49 x 69cm 27

Cliff Wall 34 acrylic on board – 26 x 35cm 28

Cliff Shadow

Cliff Shadow 1 acrylic on board – 25 x 35cm

Headlands 2 acrylic on plywood – 56 x 80cm 30

Godrevy Point 47 acrylic on plywood – 56 x 80cm 31

Long Harbour (Triptych) acrylic on board – 26 x 106cm 32

Gull Rock 6 acrylic on board – 14 x 36cm 33

Tintagel Coast 4 acrylic on board – 39 x 42cm 34

Gull Rock 8 acrylic on board – 58 x 58cm 35

Pentargon Cliff 36

Pentargon Cliff acrylic on plywood – 57 x 87cm 37

Harbour 11 acrylic on board – 80 x 122cm

Godrevy Point 46 40

Godrevy Point 46 – acrylic on paper – 72 x 112cm 41

Harbour Coast acrylic on board – 36 x 122cm 42

Two Headlands acrylic on plywood – 35 x 106cm 43

Headlands 7 acrylic on plywood – 80 x 122cm

Harbour Drawing pencil on paper – 14 x 18cm 46

Headlands 1 acrylic on plywood – 20 x 30cm 47

Headlands 6 acrylic on board – 19 x 30cm 48

Harbour 10 acrylic on board – 37 x 61cm 49

Headlands 50

Headlands Drawing 3 pencil on paper – 29 x 83cm 51

Tintagel Coast 6 acrylic on board – 30 x 30cm 52

Promontory 2 acrylic on plywood – 62 x 152cm 53

Tintagel Coast 7 acrylic on plywood – 87 x 160cm

BIOGRAPHY Vanessa Gardiner was born in Oxford in 1960. She completed a Foundation Course at Oxford Polytechnic in 1978-1979, followed by a BA (Hons) Fine Art Degree at Central School of Art & Design, London. Vanessa currently lives and works in Dorset, England. SOLO EXHIBITIONS FROM 1991 – PRESENT: Duncan Campbell Gallery, London; Gordon Hepworth Gallery, Exeter; Hart Gallery, London; Atrium Gallery, Bournemouth University; Campden Gallery, Gloucestershire; Sladers Yard, Dorset; British School at Athens, Greece; Quercus Gallery, Bath; Thackeray Gallery, London SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS FROM 2002 – PRESENT: Thackeray Gallery, London; Browse & Darby - Critic’s Choice selected by Andrew Lambirth; Royal Academy Summer Exhibition; Westmoreland Landscape Prize; Sladers Yard, Dorset; Campden Gallery, Gloucestershire; Brook Gallery, Exeter; Art on a postcard, London; Art for Cure, Glemham Hall, Suffolk; Quercus Gallery, Bath; Rabley Drawing School; Lynn PainterStainers Prize Exhibition, London; Kettles Yard, Cambridge; British Art Fair, London (Hart Gallery);The Carlow Art Collection, Carlow, Ireland; Bevere Gallery, Worcester; 179” RHA Exhibition (invited artist), Gallagher Gallery, Dublin; Bournemouth University Art Loan Collection, Bournemouth; Alpha House, Sherborne; London Art Fair, Islington, London; Images, North Mayo,The Courthouse Gallery,Co. Mayo, Ireland; Sherborne House, Sherborne; Art for Life, Christie’s, London; New Ashgate Gallery, Farnham; Eigse Carlow Visual Arts, Carlow, Ireland CORPORATE COLLECTIONS: The Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital; Bournemouth University; Carlow Art Collection, Ireland; The Ballinglen Archive, Ireland; Magdalen College, Oxford; Fidelity International; Huddersfield City Art Gallery; New Hall, Cambridge; British School at Athens, Greece; British Academy, London AWARDS, RESIDENCES & COMMISSIONS FROM 1999 – PRESENT: Arts Council South West – Fine Art Award; Residency Fellowship, Ballinglen Arts Foundation, Ireland; British School at Athens, Greece – Prince of Wales Bursary for the Arts; Presnensky, Moscow Vanessa Gardiner has been represented by Thackeray Gallery, London since 2013. 56

Above: Gull Rock 6 – acrylic on board – 14 x 36cm

Front Cover: Harbour 11 – acrylic on board – 80 x 122cm Back Cover: Headlands Drawing 2 – pencil on paper – 25 x 42cm

First Published in 2021 by Thackeray Gallery Ltd, 18 Thackeray Street, Kensington, London. Copyright © 2021 Thackeray Gallery Ltd All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means electrical, mechanical or otherwise without first seeking the permission of the copyright owners and the publishers. All images in this catalogue are protected by copyright and should not be reproduced without permission of the copyright holder. Details of the copyright holders are to be obtained from Thackeray Gallery Ltd.

18 THACKERAY STREET | KENSINGTON | LONDON W8 5ET www.thackeraygallery.com | enquiries@thackeraygallery.com | 020 7937 5883

Opening Hours: Tuesday to Friday, 10am - 6pm, & Saturday, 11am - 4pm Private Appointments Available 58