Gareth Edwards

Maybe a painting can poetically suggest an atmosphere and evoke associations with a place rather than cartographically describe it. This is a misquote from Whistler's description of his moody Nocturne paintings, and is how Gareth Edwards describes his instinctive approach to painting and to the process of making a particular spatial terrain. Edwards prioritises the poetics of space and evocative ambience over topographical verisimilitude. As such, his paintings have no meaning; there is no code to crack, no academic learning required, just emotional responses and a preparedness to feel with one's senses when confronted by the painting.

Edwards’ new collection of work evokes singular moods; moments of feeling and emotion that are half remembered and partly imagined. These impressions are made manifest through his attention to light and atmospheric effect. As with a viewed landscape vista, where light creates a mood within which a drama or memory unfolds, these paintings also reveal their own quiet dramas, laments, and yearnings. These are layered into painted light, evoking shifting atmospheres; a kind of emotional weather that we begin to recognise, just as we lay down our own layers of experience year after year. In turn, the viewer can rest within these paintings, entering their atmospheres, which are at once within us and beyond us - past moments, present tenses.

Gareth Edwards lives in Newlyn and works out of his Porthmeor studio in St. Ives.