Towards the end of last year, Rob Edmondson and I decided to stage an exhibition that displayed our different approaches to creating large scale original art – one highly detailed and realistic and the other more loose and sometimes dream-like. We felt it would be interesting to see how the two styles blended together and sometimes crossed over.
Rob’s work is familiar to many people since his appearance on BBC TV’s ‘Home is Where the Art is’ in 2020 with Nick Knowles, where he was joint winner. The objective was to win a commission for a selected couple and produce a piece of art that had special meaning to them. The resulting painting featured Ashness Bridge, near Keswick, a favourite place of theirs, and a cyclist, (their hobby) and the flowing water represented their love of music. Since then Rob has completed many such commissions for people around the UK, working with them to develop a brief that encapsulates their lives and loves and fits perfectly into their home.
It was great fun planning and preparing for the exhibition, with the help of Rob’s framer Mitch Longworth, who did a fabulous job of some frames for me for the first time.
The exhibition was held at BL6 studios in Horwich on the weekend of 14th/15th July, with a preview on the evening of Friday 13th June with a great turn out by both our contacts and invited guests. It was good to get to know Julia and John at BL6 studios as well.
Left to right: ‘The Calm'(RE) SOLD, Surfer’s Paradise Cape Town (JW), False Bay Cape Town(JW), The Hodder (RE)
Left to right: The Hodder( (RE), Isolation (RE) SOLD, Genesis (JW), Scale (JW), The Shallows (JW) SOLD, Blue Danube JW) SOLD
We were pleased to sell 10 pieces of work over the weekend and are hoping this will be the first of many future joint ventures.
We are now researching other suitable venues for future exhibitions in the North West and are continually producing new work and undertaking commissions.
Our quest is to find homes with big blank walls that deserve a big, beautiful original painting!
If you couldn’t make it to the exhibition, all my new paintings can soon be seen in my virtual gallery, many of which can be purchased as limited edition prints (1-5) which are produced to order, with card mount ready for framing.