'Connected' exhibition, Crypt Gallery, St Ives

Designed by Gwynne Penny, this was the poster for “Connected”, the second MAC|RAGS Art Collective exhibition at the historic Crypt Gallery, St Ives. I was delighted to take part in this show with Gwynne and other graduates of the Porthmeor Programme at the St Ives School of Painting, following the success of our first group exhibition ‘Breathing Space’.

“St Ives, Brightening” oil on canvas

‘Harbour’, oil on canvas

‘Luggers’ Oil on canvas 80 x 60 cm (Private Collection)

Inspired by an early 1930s black and white photograph of Cornish luggers. A lugger is usually a two or three masted vessel, setting lug sails on each mast. A lug sail is an asymmetric quadrilateral sail that fastens to a yard (spar) along the top edge of the sail. The lugger was used in Cornish fishing fleets for over 200 years.

MAC|RAGS art collective was formed when a group of graduates from the Porthmeor Programme at the St Ives School of Painting decided to mark their graduation with an exhibition at the Crypt Gallery, St Ives. The title refers to the strange limbo caused by lockdown in 2020 which meant that our course was suspended but also to the creative space we found in St Ives when eventually our programme began in 2021 and over the course of a year we met at the painting school for a series of inspiring weekend tutorials.

Oil on canvas 60 x 60 cm

Painted during lockdown from sketches of the pigeons on the roof of my attic studio in London.