Coast to Coast

Lawrie Quigley & Joanna Kay

13 April – 5 May 2023

Private Viewing – 14 April 6 to 10pm
Open Thursday to Sunday 12 to 6pm

Workshops with the artists: 22 April & 29 April

“Look at the sky. We are not alone. The whole universe is friendly to us and conspires only the best to those who dream and work”
Abdul Kalam

Lawrie Quigley has beautifully documented the walk from St. Bees on the Cumbrian coast to Robin Hoods Bay on the East coast famously known as the Coast-to-Coast walk. The landscape of the North of England is a rich and diverse landscape, not only its physical terrain, but also its colours and ever-changing light throughout the seasons.

Lawrie has admired the 19^th Century painter Turner especially in his approach and method of documenting the English countryside and his passion for travelling around most of the British Isles. He has visually recorded and documented his travels and developed a strong emotive response to the landscape through his own personal technique. The one abiding sense or intuitive feeling through this collection of oil paintings, is of a renewed connection with Nature and the landscape itself.

Lawrie found himself engaging with the landscape in new ways; walking around the painting as he worked, and making emotive (almost primitive) guttural sounds as he was applying and ‘feeling’ the application of brush marks and gestures which, the artist felt was reminiscent of some sort of Shamanic ritual or ceremony. The act of painting in ‘the aloneness’ within the vast landscapes during this trip brought a whole new reverence and respect to his artistic process and our environment. These paintings have instilled powerful realisations for the artist and he noted how removed we have become in relation to our spiritual connection and relationship with Nature. These paintings are a message on how essential it is to our overall well-being, both mentally and physically to engage and take pleasure in the immense wonder of nature’s embrace. @lawriequigley

Joanna Kay’s new painting collection is an exploration and expression of her inner landscape, a terrain unseen and invisible to the naked eye. The work aims to bring together out internal and external worlds. She uses colour, shape and form to express emotional planes experienced during the intimate act of creating in the studio.

The works were created at the beginning of 2023 in Ibiza, Spain. The collection of acrylic and enamel paintings explore how colour can be used to express emotional states and complex feelings which can lay unspoken inside of us. This collection is a delicate form of personal revelation and serves as a communication channel between the artists inner world and the outer landscape which surrounds her. The paintings bring to life new feelings, sensations and atmospheres which arise from the act of contemplation within the studio, an important part of her creative process.

They are a restorative act for the artist as they reveal an invisible journey of her own inner transformation. In the act of translating personal intimate feelings into abstract works, the artist experiences a sense of peace and deeper connection to life itself through the movement of energy from the within to the outer.

Joanna is passionate about individual and collective healing through the power of art to further connect us; and to enliven our experience of what it is to be human. Her form of art-making connects with the hidden layers of the soul opening up a space for viewers to engage in their own inner landscape. The art acts as an invitation to becoming more receptive towards their own within and the beauty of their personal aloneness.

Everyone’s response to colour and form is diverse and at the same time colour can function as a universal language and entry point to begin conversations around our own inner thoughts and feelings. There is a power in pigment; as colour is the quiet force which guides human life. @sequinkayart