A Delight
to the Eye –
a
VALERIE
PITCHFORD has an exhibition
Some
people know Father John Pitchford who wrote Discovering Faith and An
ABC for the PCC, but may not know that Valerie is a full-time artist with
work shown in several galleries. She trained as a designer and maker of
jewellery and later studied at the Lydegate Art Research Centre.
In
the London exhibition Valerie is showing about forty pictures. They fall into
groups, in some cases governed by subject matter, the medium being used, or the
size.
Six
paintings with Biblical connotations will be shown together. These range from a
quiet reflective Good Friday Meditation, to a painting entitled The
Waters of Babylon, (Psalm 137) with long sweeps of blues and greens
heightened with magenta - a reflection on the tragic situation of the Church
today. Touch the Mountains, Wreathe them with Smoke (Psalm 143) has a
broader more expansive feeling.
Oil
is Valerie’s favoured medium, but she also paints in pastels and acrylics. The
pastels have a strong sense of landscape with a dark palette, brilliantly
illuminated with glowing colours. A group of quite small oil paintings in bold
white frames have a jewel-like quality.
One
of her larger paintings, entitled Hand in Hand, is painted in acrylic.
Here she exploits the wonderful fluid watery look acrylics can give. A
blue-green sweep of colours dominates the canvas, with interlocking shapes of
rusty pink. Valerie uses a very large brush giving the actual paint surface an
energy of its own.
In
another oil painting, Stepping Stones, she uses a warm orange-red as a
background with the main motif in grey. Mixing these has allowed her to use a
range of tertiary colours creating subtle harmonies. This painting is mostly
done with the energetic use of a palette knife.
Valerie
and Graham’s work reflects the influence of European and American artists of
the later 19th and 20th centuries.
For
further details, invitations to the
– or e-mail
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