While Bernard Evans, inspired by a painting by Thomas Cooper Gotch, made in 1926 from the fields near his home at Wheal Betsy, comes up with views of Newlyn from the Bowjey and from Gwavas Road, and Kurt Jackson uses Harold Harvey's In the Whiting Ground for his large mixed media on canvas Bass Boys, other sources have also been explored. (Incidentally, Audrey and Bernard Evans will be spending one day a week during the exhibition's run painting new en plein air works).

Nicola Bealing's oil on canvas Another Courting Story, for example, relates to the written works of author Charles Lee; Susan Kinley's printed and laser-cut bonded silk panels are in response to the paintings and textile designs of Alec Walker, who set up the Crysede company in Newlyn; and Denny Long's Blueprints are centred around the fish box stencils used by the companies who exported pilchards from Newlyn to Italy.

Also, Alessandra Ausenda's mixed media textile piece One More Breath relates to the family albums of the Branwell family who built Penlee House (she is also showing a larger mixed media textile piece at Penlee House Gallery and Museum) and Sarah Poland's hand-made book, poem and artist prints, Under A Northern Sky, has been inspired by Elizabeth Forbes's book King Arthur's Wood.

It is worth noting that a copy of Sarah Poland's hand-made book can be seen in Penlee House Gallery and Museum close by an original copy of Elizabeth Forbes's book.

Richard Ballinger's floor installation The Colony, reflects the fact that Newlyn Art Gallery was opened 112 years ago when 112 artists were said to be living and working in the district with pull-out snapshots enclosing 112 framed drawings representing Newlyn's colony of artists at the turn of the last century.

Daphne McClure's Multiple Image Installation of St Michael's Mount, made up of paintings and prints from her own collection and others that have been loaned for the occasion, shows the way in which different artists throughout the ages have interpreted the Mount.

Meanwhile, Rupert White moves from Newlyn to Lamorna for his DVD video/crayon canvas Stream-Lined (Lamorna).

Further works include Nicola Buxton's Working with Boundaries, Changing the Balance; Emma Churchill's sculpture Coronash; Gillian Cooper's editions of lithograph prints Cornflower Dawn and Dusk; Bernard Irwin's paintings based on gardens at Trewoofe and Chyenhal; John Keys' photographs Forgotten Journeys and his silk panels Salt Trails; Angie Munro's DVD video Light Source; Marion Taylor's Copper, Graphite, Salt and Time, copper plates with dry point etching, worked with salt and graphite; Nik Strangelove's silver gelatine prints of Penzance Promenade; Bren Unwin's 16mm film Penwith Explorer; Belinda Whiting's triptych of giclee prints Girl in a Hood; Peter Webster's oils on canvas Tutuone and Tututhree, an artist whose Club Flyer produced in collaboration with designers Will Webster and Paul Betowski is available at Penlee House where it is on display alongside the original enamelled plaque, designed by Laura Knight and set in a jewelled mount by Ella Naper, which inspired it; and Paul Nicholls' School is Out (in the playground) (no prizes for guessing on which of the Newlyn School paintings this is based).

There is every evidence here of what the legacy which members of the Newlyn Society of Artists have inherited has always been about, that of "real artistic endeavour, inquiring minds and a desire to push the boundaries of contemporary practice."

* There is an associated performance in Newlyn Art Gallery at 8pm on November 14, by Ken Turner, and Lineage can be seen there (admission free) 10am-5pm Wednesday-Saturday, 11am-4pm Sunday, (closed Monday & Tuesday) until December 9.

article copyright THE CORNISHMAN 

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