We were hoping to visit Ann Whitfield's exhibition at the Witham Gallery in Barnard Castle this weekend and were disappointed that other commitments made this impossible for us. We've come across Ann's work a couple of times recently and had made a mental note to take a closer look and hopefully chat to Ann to find out more about her unique style of painting.
As luck would have it, Ann had read our blog and invited us to visit her a couple of weeks ago for a chat and to see a broad range of her work. So we wrapped up well against the early snows and trekked along to Barnard Castle.
Ann began to focus on painting landscapes around eight years ago when she and her husband, Terry, moved from Dorset. She is inspired by the scenery in and around the Dales but rather than make a realistic depiction, she prefers to give a slightly abstract feel to her pictures.
Working with acrylic paint using a palette knife, she sometimes incorporates other materials in the pictures including tissue paper, gold leaf and metallic foil (apparently Green and Black's is the best - both the foil and chocolate!). The tissue paper gives an interesting texture to the paint and the foil and gold leaf adds an extra dimension when it catches the light.
On the face of it, her choice of colours (not that it's really a conscious choice) are unusual. But the lively purples, oranges and pinks are used by Ann to express her emotional response to the subject matter. She recalls a visitor saying that her pictures were "full of joy". We have to agree, they are quite uplifting and very different from conventional landscapes.
Apart from the colours, Ann told us that she likes to portray the hills and valleys accurately so that people are able to recognise the places. She and Terry often go walking to find interesting and unusual views for Ann to sketch and subsequently paint. She finds that fellow walkers like to see and buy her paintings and love to relate stories from the locations they are familiar with. We'd also like to visit some of the locations in Ann's pictures to see them for ourselves. But perhaps we'll wait for the snow to melt first.
The exhibition is running from 10th to 15th December 2010, from 10am to 5pm each day. Ann is sharing the exhibition gallery with Anne Mason, another popular artist from nearby Eggleston.
Ann also has a selection of her pictures permanently on display at her home and is pleased to welcome visitors. You can arrange a visit by email (info@annwhitfieldart.co.uk) or take a look at Ann's web site.
Vicky and Vince,
Love Your Art
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