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Laurel Smart – Colour beyond Darkness

Free admission

The exhibition runs from Wednesday 30th March  through to and including Sunday 8th May 2022.   Opening times are 11-4pm Wednesdays through Sundays. Closed Mondays and Tuesdays and occasionally for other events in the main hall – we recommend you call first if travelling a distance to avoid disappointment.  

Laurel is a Bristol based abstract artist. This exhibition is new work created over the last two years. Her paintings are a celebration of how colour sustained her through the pandemic.

Laurel started painting large abstract canvases about four years ago. Most often they are entirely intuitive and only tell their story once they are complete. They  tend to be busy, energetic and evocative. Laurel loves colour and the physical experience of applying paint to the canvas.

She is fascinated by the relationship between chaos and order in nature. This is reflected in the way she paints, starting with apparently random marks, gradually imposing some order and then disrupting it to build it up again. The paint is many layers deep.

Main image “Breakthrough” measures 36 x 48 inches

Laurel Smart

Laurel Smart

Laurel says, “The painting will often impose itself on me and I follow where it takes me, rather than make it do something else. I try to keep an open mind about how a painting will evolve. Rather like a conversation, I respond to the last mark and the new dynamic that is created. I rarely know when a painting is finished, I reach a point where I don’t know what else to do to it. Each painting has a resting period and then if, at the end of that time, if it doesn’t need more, it’s done! But no painting is safe from revision!

It’s a fairly unpredictable way of working and can be intensely scary and frustrating! But I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

@laurelsmartpainting

Gallery

Warning: There are occasions when the main hall is closed for a performance or private event. In order to avoid any disappointment we recommend you check availability, especially if travelling any distance. Thank you

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