For this exhibition however she has looked inland rather than seaward. As she says: "For a complete change and with some artistic licence I've painted ploughed fields, sunflowers, sweet peas and even a sculpture."

Currently also exhibiting in Newlyn Art Gallery where her wall installation St Michael's Mount, built around paintings from her own collection of this famous landmark made by various artists, is a prominent part of the Newlyn Society of Artist's exhibition Lineage on view there until December 9,

Daphne McClure was born and bred in the quaint old furry-dancing town of Helston. A fact which must surely account for the strong sense of Cornishness paramount in her paintings.

Twice a winner in recent years of the coveted critic' choice award at Newlyn Art Gallery she has exhibited regularly with the Penwith and Newlyn Societies of Artists, and from Bath to Bristol to London.

It will be remembered that early last year she held an exhibition in Badcock's Gallery entitled From Cornwall to Connecticut. The result of a residency she enjoyed at the Albers Foundation in Connecticut, USA, which came about when the director of that foundation Nicholas Fox Weber happened to see an exhibition of hers at the Archeus Gallery in London and was so impressed by her work that he offered her one of the two residential studios maintained by the foundation in which artists are able to work for a period in idyllic surroundings.

As Daphne McClure recalls: "I had the privilege of working in a beautiful studio surrounded by trees in the middle of the New England forest, with only deer, bears and chipmunks, for company. Being in such a different environment pushed my work in a new direction at that time, and I did yet another series of paintings when there, one based on tree forms."

From studies of Gulval Hill to Goldsithney, Godolphin Hill to Helston Lake, or even St Michael's Mount, the 20 or so new works, mainly acrylic on canvas, in her exhibition make one realise that the more you look at them the more you appreciate that Daphne McClure's compositions are as much essays in colour, design and balance, as they are paintings of a particular place.

Explorations of and experiments with her media, and expressions of her emotions experienced at the moment when using them, if anything her recording of the patterns made in a field by the tracks of a tractor, the furrows in a ploughed field, or the accidental patterns within a mobile flock of sheep on a hillside, are made with such delight in what she sees before her that they come close to being a portrait of the painter herself.

Paintings that may perhaps lean a little more towards the abstract than before, but which are still as approachable and appealing as ever, as charming as they are Cornish, Daphne McClure's new works, plus the selection of original prints by John Piper, can be seen in Badcock's Gallery, The Strand, Newlyn.

The gallery is open from 10.30am to 5.30pm, Monday-Friday and 11am to 5.30pm on Saturday. The exhibition runs until November 27.

article copyright THE CORNISHMAN 

Comments (0)