‘Leafy Chester’ art exhibition by Steve Moon
Leafy Chester by Steve Moon
We are delighted to announce that one of the best friends of Chester Art Centre is finally exhibiting his art with us! ‘Leafy Chester’ by Steven Moon is a very much anticipated exhibition and will run for 2 weeks between 4 February 2020 and 20 February 2020, with the private view taking place on Thursday the 6th of February.
Originally from the Wirral, Steve Moon has been living in Chester for eight years. He has done art for as long as he can remember and has been painting in oils since he was eleven. In the last ten years Steve has worked in acrylics more than oils but he enjoys experimenting with different mediums and styles. Steve says that he is not a ‘fully professional artist’ but is fortunate to have a day job that gives him half of the year off. In the last few years much of his off time Steve spent in his studio.
‘The paintings in this series are strongly influenced by the landscapes of Gustav Klimt. The techniques he used gave his landscapes a pattern like quality, for some of the works Klimt (probably) used a telescope to frame distant mountains and hillside towns as seen across alpine lakes.
I was intrigued by the idea of adapting Klimt’s ‘telescope’ landscape techniques to the not-at-all mountainous Chester. My hope was that by using binoculars and sketch pad, a camera phone, several view points and lots of careful composition planning I could create townscapes that were pattern like, true and yet also not what the eye would immediately see. All the pieces were planned in the field but painted in my studio. Further inspiration came from an article on Radio 4’s Front Row which somewhat condescendingly dubbed our city as ‘leafy Chester’, implying, I felt, that it was a touch more smug home counties than real north.
In the paintings of Grosvenor Park I’ve purposely obscured all but the plinth of the somewhat overblown statue of our park’s eponymous benefactor. Sharp eyed locals may have noticed that in one painting, in order to the portray the noble lord obscured, I first had to move his monument 20 meters into frame, a technique known as artistic license :)’
~SJM~
RESURRECTION by PT MADDEN art exhibition Private View
PTMADDEN is a London artist who creates calligraphy, paintings, screen prints, fine art photographs, artist’s books, literature and sound recordings.
His photographic piece SEXPISTOLS APRIL 1976 was shown in 2014 at London’s premier East End Wilkinson Gallery (who represent that work at art trade fairs internationally). The piece was shown in the 2018 SEX BEATLES 1976-1978 exhibition at the research laboratory in Liverpool’s John Lennon Art and Design building and is currently on show at the Hornby Library in Liverpool’s Central Library as part of the British Library’s highly acclaimed touring exhibition PUNK.
His first solo painting show was at Liverpool’s View2 Gallery in 2014. During the summer of 2018 all of his work was displayed at CAC pop-up Gallery 118. During the run Sex Pistols’ guitarist Steve Jones bought a fine art photograph from SEX PISTOLS 1976 and four screenprints entitled TheImpossible#1. The gallery was visited by Elvis Costello who bought a portrait of the guitarist Peter Green.
Paintings from a future exhibition READY STEADY GAUGIN! will be displayed alongside RESURRECTION. These include works after Gaugin, Klimt, Rosetti with contemporary portraits of T800, Clint Eastwood, Che Guevara and Wolverine.
Screenprints and fine art photographs (from the artist’s series Chester Fog and Paris Immortel) are available from Chester Art Centre.
The show runs from April 18th to Monday May 6th (May Bank Holiday) inclusive.
During the show the gallery will be open seven days a week from 12 noon to 6pm.
