1 OIL ON WATER
West Cornwall artist Nell Kerr’s new exhibition at Whitewater Contemporary in Polzeath uses traditional oil painting methods to capture the transient nature of water. Nell makes close cropped and emphatic studies of moving water, from crashing waves to the sparkling beauty of placid ripples. She details the simple magic of water as the light and movement change throughout the day and the seasons.
For inspiration, she heads out in her Canadian canoe to spend time on the water in and around Cornwall’s Helford River where she lives and works, gathering ideas and reference material for her paintings, such as Reverie (pictured), back in the studio. By focusing on small areas of bodies of water such as rivers and seas, and containing them within the boundaries of her canvas, Nell’s work expresses the limitless, infinite and fractal nature of her subject.
Nell has lived in many coastal places and grew up around water, due to her father’s job at sea. After Art Foundation studies at Plymouth College of Art and Design and a BA in Fine Art at Coventry University School of Art, she moved to Cornwall in 2004. Her work has been exhibited and is held in private collections here and abroad.
Ends August 31, Polzeath is all about the beach – swimming, surfing, sunbathing and sandcastles. If you want an alternative though, head along the coast towards Trebetherick where the poet laureate, Sir John Betjeman, once lived. The writer of poems , and , he found inspiration in later life in the beautiful coast and sea of this corner of
