ref: hUl May 2-6 2017 GALLERY 8 Peter Joyce - Open a 'pdf' of this press release - return to Galleries PR Index

Peter Joyce May 2017

‘Exhibition explores the force and fragility of the land

Reclaimed, 2016, acrylic on canvas, 90 x 98cm, £9,000

The force and fragility of the land is explored in Peter Joyces latest exhibition, Marks of Passage, to

be held at Gallery 8, Duke Street, St Jamess, London, SW1Y 6BN from 2 - 6 May 2017 by Jenna

Burlingham Fine Art.

Joyce is a British painter who is currently living and working in the marshland of remote western

France. Peter has a long established reputation among Modern British artists and is considered a key

figure by collectors, advisors, curators and decorators. With a successful career spanning twenty-

five years, his work is exhibited at the major London art fairs and held in private and public

collections internationally.

According to Jenna, Joyces main representative; There is so much to look at and appreciate in

Peters paintings. They can be viewed on a visual level as beautifully balanced compositions of form,

texture and colour. But this would miss out on the serious intent and deep thought that goes into

his work, as well as his understanding of his own relationship with the landscape with all its force

and fragility.

Sea Air, 2016, acrylic on canvas laid onto wood panel, 92 x 82 cm, £8,500

In recent years, Joyce has mostly lived and worked in La Vendee in western France, a flat landscape

reclaimed from the sea, with marshy fields interlaced with canals, dykes and creeks. Throughout the

landscape can be seen relics of the once important salt harvesting industry giving it a feeling of

abandonment, as well as being home to a wide variety of wildlife and migrating birds.

Turned Back, 2016, acrylic and collage on canvas laid on to wood panel, 28 x 61cm, £3,300

Joyce is a man of passionate interests, chief among them a longstanding fascination with wildlife. In

this La vendee is especially rich, and amongst its animal population are hares, rabbits, muskrats,

coypus, small lizards, snakes and eels. There is also an abundant birdlife including harriers, short-

eared owls, redshanks, lapwings, egrets and herons. His studio in a former oyster factory is only 5

metres from the beach.

Peter’s studio in La Vendee

According to leading art critic, Ian Massey, Joyce’s paintings communicate to us in their own

essentially abstract, elusive language. Yet their power is simultaneously in what they evoke in

elemental nature. And in this, each mark and gesture, each shift of directional emphasis, is in its way

equivalent to the movement of the human body and its physical and sensory immersion in the

landscape.

Peter outside his studio

Peter’s collection of studio pottery

Forty-two paintings reveal Joyce’s continued study of the salt pan area. His work is informed by daily

walks in the physical environment, noting the landscape and atmospheric conditions and occasionally

he will alight on something that might trigger an idea from which to start a new picture. It might be

as simple as a piece of red thread caught on a wire fence. Painting in acrylics, layering through collage

and then scraping away, he also uses pieces of canvas and hessian in his work which sometimes

remain evident in the final work and are sometimes submerged within the painting.

Nets at La Louippe

Joyce has had a lifelong fascination with wildlife

During his daily walks, Peter regularly comes across visual cues which form into paintings

The body of work as a whole documents the area and titles can evoke a sense of time: Autumn

Lagoon, Printemps and sunset to name just a few, but the majority reference the man altered

landscape or the place that initially sparked the painting: Enclosure, Lost Pond, Blue Field or Red

Arc.

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.

Notes to Editors

Please click the following link, or cut and paste it into your browser, to view or download images of

the paintings in the exhibition:

http://privateview.net/2/11b51963550cd978dcdb33/

Exhibition dates:

Private view and press viewing Tuesday 2 May 2pm 9pm

Wednesday 3 May to Saturday 6 May 2017

Location:

Gallery 8

8 Duke Street St Jamess

London

SW1Y 6BN

Public opening hours:

Wednesday May 3, 10am 6pm

Thursday May 4, 10am 6pm

Friday May 5, 10am 6pm

Saturday May 6, 10am 4pm

Jenna Burlingham Fine Art:

Jenna Burlingham Fine Art, Peter Joyces main representative, specialises in Modern British paintings, prints,

ceramics and sculpture, as well as work by selected contemporary artists. Jenna has over twenty years’

experience in the art world, having worked in an auction house and then an art dealership in London prior to

opening her own gallery in 2010.

Peter Joyce:

Peter Joyce was born in 1964 in Poole, Dorset, and was educated at Bournemouth & Poole College of Art &

Design from 1980. Joyce went on to study at Stourbridge College of Art & Technology and qualified with a

Diploma in General Art & Design and a BA (Hons) in Fine Art.

Joyce 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 exhibits regularly throughout the UK and his

work is held in several corporate collections including Lloyds/TSB, National Westminster Bank, Reuters,

Binder Hamlyn, Bank of china, Hill Samuel, Cleveland County Fine Art Collection, Russell Cotes Museum and

Art Gallery, Poole Museum and Hampshire County Council.

For further information, please contact:

Jenna Burlingham Fine Art

2a George Street

Kingsclere

Newbury

RG20 5NQ

01635 298855

info@jennaburlingham.com

www.jennaburlingham.com

 TOP