LAC Freya Purdue.

I visited Letchworth yesterday, with a friend, to look at some spaces and of course, we had to stop by the Letchworth Arts Centre! This was my second time visiting there, last time being when the 3^rd years had a show there and I was pleasantly surprised at the show now there.

Freya Purdue is exhibiting until the 15^th May, so there is still plenty of time to have a gander, or if you cannot make it, have a look at her website.

LAC is positioned above a pub called The Three Magnets and heading into the Arcade, it is the first door on your right, if you are approaching from Leys Avenue. You go up the stairs, or lift, and depending which way you turn, you end up either in the Foyer gallery space or in the café, which is also used as hanging space. You will then soon come to Main Gallery and be delighted with the amount of space there is.

I rather enjoyed Purdue’s paintings; it was a lovely show, however, my images of them definitely do not do them justice! I am going to have to brush up on my photo taking skills… I was more drawn to the ones with brighter colours and more outlined patterns (makes sense to me). The space was right for the larger paintings; they each had enough room to be viewed on their own. Although, I feel the lighting in places let some of them down. The one above is certainly one of my favourites, not because of the painting itself, but simply for what the shape reminds me of. You can see the elephant too, right?

I have got them on my brain.

Elesym VI - XI.

These are kind of a series within a series. They are clearly unfinished and all still works in progress. God forbid if I called them finished, I would be told what is wrong with them straight away! I am still working with using shapes from the elephant skull and transforming them into even more so unknown forms.

I hope to finish them over the summer; I should be able to. With the lack of space I have back home for working, nothing usually is achieved, but these are only little. Maybe you will see them again sometime, keep an eye out.

I also learnt that hanging things up is quite helpful...

Elesym V.

Not a great final picture, sorry! There is a better image in a later blog post.

This piece is very different from the previous painting. I wanted to work in an opposite way, after it was suggested that I try to work freer and oil paint was the best way to do this. I also decided that I would not use a flat colour and chose to blend coloured patches, as I have not quite managed to master that technique with oils. However, yes, I know, practice makes perfect…

The only same part of this painting is that I used the stencil tracing for the skull again. I then worked up layers of washes on it and in doing this, I realised why I used to have a small select colour palette. Too many colours makes it really complicated and you have to think more about which colours you are using for shadows etc. I still kept building them up until I was satisfied with a point to leave it at.

It is a recycled canvas, which I think I have mentioned before, from a friend. You can still see some of the previous painting that they had painted within the white space. After the washes on the skull shape, I thought it would be best to stop. To cover it I would have had to use white acrylic, which would have been better to do before starting the painting and it would have left it a flat colour. I feel this would have looked out of place. With how it is, it possibly looks like a porthole and a foggy landscape outside, then obviously the strange shape floating in the middle.

I think it appears unfinished and I am fine with that. I can still go back to it at a later point if I wish to.