Penzance Sunday Painter

Penzance Sunday Painter takes their name from the artist’s home town and a desire to reclaim a term that is often associated with negative connotations relating to amateurish art, to make new figurative paintings that reflect an interest in storytelling. These modest paintings are domestic in scale, painted with oils on gesso primed panels or cardboard. The paint handling varies in application, where more muted palettes reminiscent of Walter Sickert, vie with more of a heightened sense of colour and an interest in the Nabis and Edouard Vuillard. The starting points or references explored within the paintings can be found from a number of sources: from a personal narrative whether, observed, remembered or imagined; art history, fictional literature; and cinema and theatrical performance. The paintings are often set within interior spaces that form a stage in which a speculative narrative plays out. Within these spaces solitary figures are engrossed in an activity, or are left empty, suggesting a scene about to unfold. There is openness to these paintings that invites the viewer to explore these works and bring their own interpretations to continue and complete the story.