MAN TO THE HILLS WOMAN TO THE SHORE DAVID BRAYNE whitespaceart.com
MAN TO THE HILLS WOMAN TO THE SHORE DAVID BRAYNE 10 September - 1 October 2022 at White Space Art, Totnes 1 ( cover) Orange Towel acrylic & pigment 50 x 65cms Five2 Fisherwomen acrylic & pigment 94 x 88cms
Of course the painting of a man and his dog walking towards an orchard is a direct reference to the proverb. Our House is Filled with Many Birds (right) is quite different from the other paintings in the show. It’s the last piece I completed and harks back to a watercolour I exhibited at the Bankside Gallery, London in 2008. This was part of an exhibition I devised and curated for the Royal Watercolour Society which explored the relationship between poetry and painting. I invited 19 painters to create new work in response to a poem of their choice. I worked with the Poetry Society and commissioned a poem from Pascale Petit. All the exhibitors were asked to create an extra painting taking Pascale’s poem as their starting point. For my main watercolour I chose a line from a Frank Black song, I Burn Today – ‘Our house is filled with many birds, she said to me I can understand their words.’ I’ll leave a copy of the catalogue in the gallery during the show so you can see if the new painting stands up to the first one.
Henry Moore often focussed on recurring subjects – the mother and child or reclining figures for example. He said that there’s always so much to consider when starting something new that using a subject you know is helpful, “if you don’t do that and you let everything in you’d just burst!’’
David Brayne August 2022 David Brayne (right) with gallery director Jolyon White in the artist’s studio
From time to time I find particular subjects keep coming back to me and I need to do something about them. Boats, figures by the edge of the sea or standing in an open landscape often recur. The proverb carries some weight for me and offers I hope a sympathetic title for the show.
INTRODUCTION
I recently stumbled across Seamus Heaney’s poem, Shore Woman. A poem provoked by an old Gaelic proverb, Man to the Hills, Woman to the Shore, in which he plays with the drama and the dynamics of the sea. It’s not the drama but the calm, lyrical moments I enjoy the most.
Our3 House Is Filled With Many Birds acrylic & pigment 66 x 76cms
Levels4 acrylic & pigment 88 x 79cms
Shoal5 of Orange Fish acrylic & pigment 50 x 65cms
Swimmer6 acrylic & pigment 52 x 66cms
Red7 Slipper acrylic & pigment 50 x 62cms
A8 Pot of Flowers II acrylic & pigment 50 x 40cms
West10 Light acrylic & pigment 30 x 24cms Morning9 Light acrylic & pigment 25 x 31cms
The11 Blue Towel acrylic & pigment 29 x 22cms A12 Pot of Flowers acrylic & pigment 27 x 33cms
Open13 Net II acrylic & pigment 40 x 50cms
Man14 to the Hills acrylic & pigment 117 x 60cms
Pier15 acrylic & pigment 62 x 92cms
Woodland16 acrylic & pigment 19 x 30cms Wide17 River Pocked With Light acrylic & pigment 29 x 22cms
Reedbed18 acrylic & pigment 22 x 29cms Woman19 Reading acrylic & pigment 22 x 15cms
White20 Boathouse acrylic & pigment 90 x 80cms
Published by White Space Art, Totnes to accompany the exhibition Woman to the Shore, Man to the Hills, 10 September - 1 October 2022 © White Space Art & David Brayne, all rights reserved
After studying art at Nottingham School of Art and Gloucestershire College of Art, David later went on to study philosophy at the University of Exeter. David’s work has been exhibited both in solo and group exhibitions in galleries in the UK, Italy, USA and China. It is held in public collections including: The Royal Collection; Qingdao Museum, China; The Institute of Modern Art, Mumbai; Cyril Fry; The Royal Watercolour Society The Ingram collection and in private collections around the world. He has exhibited at the Royal Academy Summer exhibition on a number of occasions. This is David’s fourth solo exhibition at White Space Art.
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David Brayne is an honorary member of the Royal Watercolour Society and winner of the Turner Medal for Watercolour. He makes his paints from raw pigments, luminous ochres, vibrant blues and greens, resonant blacks. His textured surfaces are built slowly with clear glazes and impasto, sometimes drawn into or scratched out. The colours retain their brilliance, and his work is deeply individual.
White21 Sail acrylic & pigment 85 x 76cms
A22 Shoal of Silver Fish acrylic & pigment 25 x 35cms White Space Art, 72 Fore Street, Totnes, Devon TQ9 5RU t 01803 864088 e info@whitespaceart.com
