REMOTE WESTERN FRANCE
COMES TO LONDON
Flooded Pools, 2014, Acrylic and collage on wood panel, 64cm x 104cm (Price: £8,500)
The extraordinary marsh landscape of Western France and its rare salt pans is coming to London, in the
form of paintings by highly regarded abstract painter, Peter Joyce.
Jenna Burlingham Fine Art is holding its first solo exhibition in London for Joyce entitled ‘Moving South’.
The exhibition is to be held at Gallery 8, 8 Duke Street, St James’s, London, SW1Y 6BN on
Wednesday, May 6 - Sunday, May 10 2015.
Peter Joyce – who is fast being recognised as one to watch by collectors and interior decorators - is well
known and highly regarded among Modern British artists. His work is exhibited at all the main London
art fairs and held in private and public collections all over the world. He is someone who prefers to be
outside, especially in the Marais Breton Vendeen in western France where his studio is. This
extraordinary marshland landscape pervades his work, apparently subliminally for he makes his paintings
behind the closed doors of his large workspace. Although he sees himself as an abstract painter, the
English tradition of landscape painting and a recognizable nod towards post war Modern British Art are
unmistakable. This said, Joyce is very much an artist working in 21st Century Europe.
The title of the exhibition refers not only to the physical move the artist Peter Joyce has made from
Dorset to La Vendee in France but also to the noticeable influence this move has had on his work. The
palette is brighter, the paintings are more open and this is the consequence of the combination of his
proximity to the sea, the longer sunshine hours, the warmth and the quality of the light.
Twenty-two paintings reveal Joyce’s concentrated study of the salt pan areas. It is an extraordinary area
of polders and wet meadows crossed by canals and ditches, which Joyce has thoroughly explored and
researched by walking, mapping and photographing. The exhibition is carefully put together as a whole,
although each painting in itself is a complete piece of work.
Left to Right: Suspended Lines 2014, Acrylic on Canvas laid to wood panel, 92cm x 92cm (Price: £9,500) & Propriété Privéé 2014, Acrylic on canvas,
200cm x 118cm (Price: £18,000)
Water Primrose, 2014, Acrylic on Canvas laid to wood panel,
28cm x 28cm (Price: £2,000)
The body of work as a whole documents the
area and the titles can evoke a sense of time;
September, Dried Earth and Rosehip Evening, to
name just a few, there are also ones that evoke
the weather; Summer Storm, Storm Light,
Flooded Pools. Other paintings deal with the
changing colour through flora; Water Primrose
(an invasive plant not native to the area that
chokes the waterways with it’s beautiful yellow
flowers) Into Autumn (which is about the pinks
from the fauna and the late summer sun). Still
others are about the place/structure of the
landscape: Fenced pool, Seaweed Catcher,
Divided Digue (Digue is the French for a sea
wall).
“His resulting work may appear quite abstract,” says Jenna Burlingham, Peter Joyce’s main representative,
“and indeed he thinks of himself as an abstract artist. But the pictures would not look like they do if it
was not for the landscape in which he immerses himself and some of them are in fact quite literal –
colours, shape, form and texture are all taken directly from life.”
Joyce has a distinctive style, his paintings are created layer by layer and the surface, like the landscape
itself, is worked and re-worked. Drawing, painting and
compositional changes are endlessly made creating
complicated yet enchanting surfaces. Each layer is
changed and often removed as if by erosion mimicking
the landscape itself. The process continues until the
painting reminds him of the place and the place reminds
him of the painting.
Of the exhibition, Joyce says: “For me, painting is a
natural extension of my love of the outdoors. I enjoy
weather, wildlife, geography and the seasons. Somehow,
painting is an extension of that.”
Of the Marais Breton Vendeen, he says: “I love being
here, it’s a challenging landscape reclaimed from the sea.
After the Lock Gates, 2014, Acrylic on paper, 38cm x 30cm
Maybe it isn’t so immediately obvious in terms of aesthetic appearance as my home county of Dorset. It
isn’t hills, valleys and cliff faces, it is endlessly flat and apparently featureless. It rewards perseverance on
the aesthetic level, very much like painting. The area resists easy translation onto canvas. I’m comfortable
with that though, my painting is a seemingly endless set of questions and answers, of working and
reworking and of trial and error. I enjoy the process of struggling with paint, I am a painter, paint is my
medium and I choose the subject of what I see. I love the marsh landscape as much as I loved Dorset. ”
NOTES TO EDITORS
EXHIBITION DATES
Wednesday, May 6 to Sunday, May 10 2015
LOCATION
Gallery 8
8 Duke Street St James's
London
SW1Y 6BN
PUBLIC OPENING HOURS
Wednesday, May 6 – 10am - 6pm
Thursday, May 7 - 10am - 6pm
Friday, May 8 – 10am – 6pm
Saturday, May 9 – 10am – 4pm
Sunday, May 10 – 11am – 3pm
For press enquiries about the exhibition and to register to
attend the Press Preview on Tuesday, May 5, 2015,
please contact: Rachel Aked (rachel@rachelaked.co.uk)
tel: 0044 (0)7790 732448 or
Sandie Maylor (sandie_maylor@yahoo.co.uk)
tel: 0044 (0)7976311172
For more information on Jenna Burlingham Fine Art, please visit
www.jennaburlingham.com
Jenna Burlingham Fine Art who is Peter Joyce’s main representative, specialises in Modern British
paintings, prints, ceramics and sculpture as well as work by selected contemporary artists. Jenna has over
20 years experience of the art world having worked in an auction house and then an art dealership in
London, prior to opening her gallery in 2010.
Peter Joyce was born in 1964 in Poole, Dorset, and was educated at Bournemouth & Poole College of
Art & Design from 1980. He went on to study at Stourbridge College of Technology & Art, and qualified
with a Diploma in General Art & Design and a BA (Hons) in Fine Art.
He has taught at the Bournemouth Arts Institute since graduating, with the position of chairman of
'Room 10 Painting Group' and president of Bournemouth Arts Club. He exhibited regularly throughout
the UK, and previous locations include Bath, Cambridge, Winchester, St Ives, Surrey, Brighton, Cornwall,
Poole, London and New York. His work is held in several corporate collections, some of which include
Lloyds/TSB, National Westminster Bank, Reuters, Binder Hamlyn, Bank of China, Hill Samuel, Cleveland
County Fine Art Collection, Russell Cotes Museum & Art Gallery, Poole Museum Service and Hampshire
County Council. Private collections are spread internationally, throughout the UK, USA and Canada,
India, Saudi Arabia, and across Europe.
February 2015