Sense of Space

Neil Canning and New Craftsman Gallery present a vivid September exhibition inspired by the wide blue ocean

Words by Mercedes Smith

For this year’s all important St Ives September Festival, New Craftsman Gallery presents Sense of Space, an exhibition of work by painter Neil Canning. Neil is one of Cornwall’s most respected and high-profile artists, with a powerfully abstract style drawn from the dynamic landscape of West Cornwall. In 2011 Neil was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the University of Exeter for his outstanding contribution to Contemporary British Art, and his work is held in private and corporate collections internationally. Behind his sweeping, large-scale compositions and vivid use of colour is a deep love for West Cornwall, and thirty years of commitment to making work here. “My first visit was to St Ives in 1993” says Neil, “and it had a huge impact on me. I loved the open vista of Porthmeor Beach, the town’s sheltered harbour, and further afield the wild moors of Penwith with its standing stones. I have always been attracted by sparse, dramatic landscapes so this rich environment and rugged coastline immediately appealed to me. I felt completely at home here”. At first Neil spent the winter months painting in St Ives, relocating to Cornwall permanently in 1997 and becoming part of its prolific art community. “It was a very exciting time for me as a painter” he says. “Being an artist can be a solitary occupation, so it was great being able to interact with other artists. There was a real energy in the town and a focus on bringing in visitors who were specifically there to look at art. It was also still possible at that time to bump into Patrick Heron or Sandra Blow on Fore Street and have a chat, so St Ives gave me everything I needed to develop my work further”. Since then, being close to the ocean has allowed Neil to develop a way of working that transcends representation, inviting the viewer to experience the power and beauty of nature through the language of abstraction. “There is an amazing sense of space here which I find incredibly liberating” Neil explains. “It allows me to incorporate a greater degree of energy when painting, and to employ high-key colour which reflects the intensity of Cornwall’s azure seas and yellow explosions of gorse or lichen.” Working in his studio mostly from memory, Neil explores the West Cornwall environment in detail and from different physical viewpoints. “Memory plays a large part in the way I transform information” Neil explains, “and places that create the strongest memories stay with me. I rarely draw nowadays and if I do it is a few definitive lines and some written notes about light or weather conditions, strength of wind or temperature. It is these elements that are edited and take me back to that original experience of ‘place’, so that the abstraction in my work comes from simplifying what I see and recreating the essential sensations of being in a particular location. Light and weather are just as important as capturing the more concrete qualities of landscape, and I also like to give the impression of movement. Despite the traditional idea of landscape painting, we actually spend most of our time moving through our surroundings, walking or moving at speed in a car or train, even looking down from an aircraft, so as a contemporary artist I am aware of these aspects and aim to incorporate them in my work. I accept that my paintings are largely abstract works, but each one reflects a moment in nature”. Neil works on around 50 paintings at any one time, on both canvas and paper, layering drawn lines and thinly glazed veils of colour, and scraping back the surface to create texture. Some works are in progress for a several years. “It is a voyage of discovery” says Neil, “where I am led by what happens as I work. At some point I recognise a certain dynamic, an alchemy where the painted surface has a life of its own. From that point on it is a case of gradually resolving the composition, often adding accents to balance and move the eye around the surface. I have learned to rely on instinct and allow surprising things to happen as I paint”. Despite the distinctly colour oriented quality of Neil’s work, his palette is ‘short’, restricted to just three or four colours in a way that ensures clarity, purity and significant visual punch. “Colour choice is a very personal thing” he says. “We are all influenced in a subconscious way by the colour around us. We also automatically equate blue with sea or sky, and green with land, maybe taking us back to painting as children, but in recent years, particularly since I moved out of St Ives into the countryside nearby, I have become much more aware of subtle colour combinations. The various blues of the sea – ultramarine, indigo, turquoise, Prussian blue – are ever present here but now I am using these alongside earth colours and the very intense pinks and yellows of wildflowers”.

For his Sense of Space exhibition, which includes both large canvases and small works on paper, Neil’s intention is to reflect how much being surrounded by the ocean impacts his work. “The sea brings a real sense of freedom to what I do and influences the dynamics of every painting. It allows me to create a world of floating forms, with a focus on the coastline at the point where land meets sea. During the past year we have witnessed some huge Atlantic storms, and the intense energy of high seas and gales has instilled many of these paintings with an added drama”.

See Neil Canning’s Sense of Space from 14th September to 11th October 2024 at New Craftsman Gallery, 24 Fore St, St Ives, and at newcraftsmanstives.com