At Home with Landscape
Fleur Kreel
Tue 22 Nov 2016 – Sat 10 Dec 2016
Fleur Kreel distills the ever-changing land and seascapes of Sussex into small moments of perfection. Immediately recognisable if you have ever stared into the horizon on a stormy day, or walked the bare backs of the Downs after a frost, her brushstrokes describe it perfectly without the need for detail. The paintings are born out of a special relationship between painter and landscape, views contemplated and then recalled, imbued with a greater meaning because of Fleur’s way of working as an artist. Fleur describes her relationship with the local landscape with the passion of someone who fears it changing, of it being lost for good and it is not hard to see how this translates into her work.
Fleur:
“At Home with Landscape is an exhibition of original paintings depicting the land, sky and sea where I live in Sussex between the South Downs and the sea.
Each time I go out and about my daily life, I am smitten again by the beauty of what I see – the side of a great, friendly hill, so near but so far at the end of a street of terraces; a succession of fields in cultivation and fallow undulating and inter-locking into the distance seen from the A27. The incredible softness of cloud, the milky green and pewter glitter of our chalky sea seen from upstairs on the bus; on a local walk the clean curves of the Downs visible for miles, yet picked out in extraordinary clarity and detail by the light – down to the finest branches and shadows of distant trees and the homely textures of ploughed soil and grass.
I am moved to paint because I want it all – each and every changing moment of the scene – to keep for longer than a moment; to fend off fears of losing it to development; to savour and protect it by bringing it home with me.
Then when I get home I paint from memory. I have no plan. Often I end up not painting what I have just seen after all, but something from days before, though being outside with the scene is always my motivation. I need to see the real thing to give me the feeling, and then close my eyes to recall it.
That is my endeavour.”
Fleur Kreel October 2016
All paintings exhibited are 12.7 x 17.7 cm acrylic on canvas board (23.4 x 28.6 cm as framed)
