24th December 2010 Happy Christmas!

I'd just like to wish all friends of ELEVEN AND A HALF a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Many thanks to everyone who saw us ths year, either at an art fair or at one of our exhibitions. We'll be sending out details of events for next year early in 2011. With no events in the last month we haven't received many new paintings from our artists over the last few weeks, but here's a recent offering from Terry Whybrow. Happy Christmas to you all! Matt and Vikki.

25th November 2010 Plans for 2011.

This week roughly marks the end of the first year of ELEVEN AND A HALF. In 2010 we held three exhibitions and attended four art fairs. Many thanks to everyone who came and saw us at one of these events. For 2011 we already have three exhbitions planned (a group show in May and a two-man show in June, both in London, and another Summer Exhibition in Cornwall in September). We will also be holding another group show late in the year in London. We'll also be at the Cambridge, Devon, Windsor Art Fairs and, new to us, the Edinburgh Art Fair in November. Plus, hopefully, a few other fairs along the way. Please read our events page for the latest details when they become available. We hope to see you at one (or more!) of these.

9th November 2010 Windsor Contemporary Art Fair.

This weekend we'll be on stand 75 of the Windsor Contemporary Art Fair. This event has been running for several years and is held at Royal Windsor Racecourse. We'll be showing paintings by Ben Catt, John Piper, Michael Praed, Terry Whybrow, Ges Wilson and Vincent Wilson as well as ceramics by Lincoln Kirby Bell. We still have a number of discounted ticket available - please contact us for details. Full details of the fair can be found on their website.

7th November 2010 Sou'westers.

Our exhibition at the Colomb Art Gallery has been and gone. Many thanks to everyone who attended, either on the night of the Private View or during the week. We were very pleased with the show - all of the artists had supplied excellent examples of their recent work. You can see some of the paintings we had on show here. Below is Tier of Small Boats, Green Harbour, a painting given to us by Michael Praed for the exhibition.

26th October 2010 New John Piper paintings.

We've recently received some new paintings from John Piper. They are on a smaller scale (the paintings are all roughly 6 inches tall and between 10 and 12 inches wide) and have more muted colours than some of his large work but still perfectly capture the mood of West Penwith as the misty winter weather approaches. We'll be showing them at our exhibition Sou'westers which begins in Marylebone next week, and at the Windsor Contemporary Art Fair a couple of weeks later. They'll be added to the website in the next few days but here's a sneak preview:

11th October 2010 Sou'westers.

Our next London exhibition begins in three week's time. We'll be showing recent paintings by eight of our artists as well as, for the first time in London, ceramics by Lincoln Kirby Bell. The exhibition is being held at The Colomb Art Gallery, Marylebone, where we had our first show a year ago. Some of the paintings are still drying, and some are yet to be painted! But when they're ready we'll have them all on this website if you're unable to make it to the exhibition. However, there is no substitute for seeing the paintings in the flesh so we hope to see many of you there, either during the day or at the Private View on the 4th November. Below is Neil Davies' seascape that we chose for the front cover of the brochure. He's busy painting more for the exhibition at this moment.

5th October 2010 Devon Art Fair.

This weekend we were at the Devon Art Fair in Torquay. This was the inaugural year for the event and featured 35 galleries from across Europe. There was a great mix of 20th and 21st century art on display with many of the best-known contemporary artists represented. Our stand featured paintings by nine artists including some great new work by Ben Catt, one example of which is below. The fair was a great success - the organisers, who also arrange the Edinburgh and Cambridge Art Fairs, know how to put on a good show - and will almost certainly become an annual event.

13th September 2010 West By South-West.

Our Cornwall exhibition opened 3 days ago and is now in full swing. The exhibition space is the lower floor of a two-storey barn in the hamlet of Trebehor, a couple of miles from Land's End. We're showing the work of 10 artists, all of whom have exhibited with us in London in the last year in a large room previously used as a workshop and before that a cowshed. We're sharing it with 4 birds' nests and a large quantity of spiders and beetles! If you can make it along, directions can be found here. If not, many of the paintings we have on the walls can be seen here.

3rd September 2010 Other artists.

The eagle-eyed will have spotted a extra section in our new-look website: Other Artists. Most of the artists whose work we exhibit we have a permanent and on-going relationship with - they supply us with their latest work to show at exhibitions and fairs. On the Other Artists page you will find work for sale on a one-off basis by artists we have no relationship with. We're simply selling the paintings on behalf of a third party. We hope to be able to maintain a selection of work for sale by some of the better known artists of West Cornwall of the last 50 years or so. Initially we have a painting by Margo Maeckelberghe, whose work has become particularly collectable following her 2008 exhibition at Tate St Ives, as well as paintings by Roy Ray and Reg Watkiss. We hope to have more paintings to show you soon.

21st August 2010 New Ges Wilson paintings.

Ges Wilson has just sent some images of paintings she is sending us for our September exhibition West by South-West. They are three of her recent seascapes, painted from sketches done early in the morning along the Cornish coast. One is of Gwithian and Godrevy lighthouse, one of St Michael's Mount and one of Prussia Cove (also known as Bessy's Cove), the inlet near Praa Sands reknown for its history of ship-wreckers. The paintings beautifully capture the wildness of the landscape, the wind-swept beaches and flowing tides. All three will be on show in September, along with some of Ges' figurative work. Here's a preview:

10th August 2010 New Brenda King paintings.

I was in Cornwall last week preparing for our September exhibition. I also called in to pick up some new paintings by Brenda King. To say they are recent paintings is something of an under-statement - the signatures were still wet when I took them away. Three are archetypal Brenda King paintings - a landscape through a window with a composition of pots, jugs and fruit in the foreground. The other two are still-lifes, featuring flowers, vases and jugs on a table-top. All are in the faux-naive style for which Brenda is well known. Their quirkiness and curiousness is what appeals to me. You can see all five here (the first 5 images) but here's a personal favourite:

7th August 2010 Lincoln Kirby Bell.

We are very pleased that Lincoln Kirby Bell has agreed to let us show his ceramics at our exhibitions, beginning with West by South-West in Cornwall in September. Originally from South Australia, Lincoln has been working from his studio close to Newlyn Harbour for a number of years and his ceramics can be found in several local galleries. The elaborate designs, often featuring spots, spirals and circles draw from his experiences of archaeological digs in Central and South America. The exuberant colours make his work unforgettable and instantly recognisable. We hope you'll be able to come to one of our forthcoming events to see some of his most recent pieces.

21st July 2010 Details of Cornwall exhibition.

Our first exhibition in Cornwall, West by South West, will be held between 10th and 23rd September 2010. The show is being held in Mowhay Barn in Trebehor, a small hamlet near Sennen and about halfway between Land's End and Porthcurno. Mowhay Barn was last used as a cowshed and at this moment still resembles one. However, a few weeks of renovation should see it more suitable for an art exhibition by the time September comes along. The show is a group exhibition featuring recent paintings by Ben Catt, Neil Davies, Brenda King, Jason Lilley, Gary Long, John Piper, Michael Praed, Ken Symonds, Terry Whybrow and Ges Wilson. If you're on holiday at that time, or live in the area, we'd love to see you there!

11th July 2010 Sunday afternoon events in July and August

We are holding a series of Sunday afternoon Private Viewings in July and August. We've recently received quite a few new peices of work from our artists, partly for the Cambridge Art Fair and partly in preparation for our exhibition in Cornwall in September. If you didn't make it to Cambridge and won't be in Cornwall in September why not come and see the paintings in London? Each week we'll be showcasing the work of one particular artist but we can easily bring out paintings by any of the others. We have several new paintings by Terry Whybrow, John Piper and Neil Davies. Only a few of Michael Praed's didn't sell in Cambridge but these include some that are framed - the first time Mike's paintings have been framed in 30 years - which sets them off beautifully. More details can be found here but please contact us for full details.

22nd June 2010 Cambridge Art Fair this week

The Cambridge Art Fair is upon us (24th-27th June). Tomorrow the final paintings are arriving from Cornwall and on Thursday we will be hanging the stand in preparation for the Private View on Thursday night. We'll be showing recent work by Ben Catt, Neil Davies, Brenda King, Jason Lilley, Gary Long, Neil Pinkett, John Piper, Michael Praed and Terry Whybrow. I'll put examples of the work on the website early next week but if you want to see them in the flesh you'll have to pay us a visit, either in Spitalfields after the exhibition or at the Cambridge Art Fair itself. More details of the fair can be found here.

We still have a couple of free and discounted tickets available. Please contact us for details. We hope to see you there.

15th June 2010 Neil Davies

In the run up to our exhibition last month I didn't get a chance to write about Neil Davies who has recently agreed to exhibit with us and whose paintings were among the most popular in the Mayfair show. To say that Neil applies paint liberally is something of an understatement. Layer upon layer of paint coat his smaller works on board but the overall effect is carefully controlled. The result are paintings that convey wild Cornish weather and dramatic landscapes like no other artist's. A trip to his studio is a fasciniating experience - saucepans of paint litter the floor while the back wall features the silhouette of a canvas in the middle of splatters of brightly coloured paint.

We are delighted to be able to show his paintings and are very much looking forward to seeing the new work he is preparing for our trip to the Cambridge Art Fair.

23rd May 2010 Cambridge Art Fair line-up

The Cambridge Art Fair is now only a month away (24th-27th June). This annual event is held in the Chilford Hall Vineyard in Linton, a few miles south of Cambridge. There will be 42 stands exhibiting work from around Europe and even from the Americas. We'll be on stand B9 showing new paintings by Ben Catt, Neil Davies, Brenda King, Jason Lilley, Gary Long, Neil Pinkett, John Piper, Michael Praed and Terry Whybrow. More details of the fair can be found here.

We'll have a limited number of free and discounted tickets available nearer the time as well as some invitations to the Private View on the evening of the 24th June. Please contact us for details. We hope to see you there.

3rd May 2010 Mayfair exhibition opens!

Today our Mayfiar exhibition has opened. The show runs from 3rd-9th May at 54 The Gallery, Shepherd Market and features paintings by nine artists from Cornwall. Please see our events page for full details. After a bubble-wrap filled morning I'm very pleased with the way the paintings look - although there's a large range of painting styles they work well as a group together. Neil Davies' Turner-esque Headland provides a dramatic backdrop on the rear wall of the gallery while the more controlled styles of Terry Whybrow and Jason Lilley sit well with Ben Catt's more abstract approach. Some of the paintings on show can be viewed here.

There's a Private View on Wednesday and it would be great to see you there. Alternatively we'll be open until at least 6.30pm every day this week. Here are a few photos from the show:

26th April 2010 Reading Contemporary Art Fair.

This weekend we've been showing work by 6 artists at the Reading Contemporary Art Fair. This was the first year for this event but the turnout was high with 70 exhibitors and over 3000 people attending the fair over the weekend. It was a fun event and we learned a lot about Reading in the process, including that one of the main tourist attractions of the city is a copy of the Bayeux Tapestry and that The Oracle (signposted all over the M4) is nothing more exotic than a large shopping centre! On our stand we showed work by Brenda King, John Piper, Michael Praed, Ken Symonds, Ges Wilson and Vincent Wilson. We included some of Ges' recent landscapes which went down well with the Reading set:

Our next art fair is the Cambridge Art Fair (25th-27th June). If you are thinking of attending please contact us as we will have a limited number of discounted tickets available nearer the time.

6th April 2010 Exhibition line-up finalised.

We now have the line-up for our exhibition in Mayfair in May (3rd-9th). West Cornwall Perspectives will feature recent work by nine artists all of whom live in West Cornwall:

Of these nine, only John Piper and Michael Praed exhibited with us at our last exhibition in November 2009 - we are very pleased to be able to show the new artists' work for the first time. Their work covers a broad spectrum of painting styles, from Terry Whybrow's still-lifes to Ben Catt's fairly abstract landscapes, from Brenda King's faux-naive table tops and views to Jason Lilley's politically inspires skylines of St Ives.

Full details of the exhibition including some of the paintings we shall be showing can be found here. Brochures (which are also an invitation to our Private View on the 5th May) will be sent out to people on our mailing list in the next couple of weeks. If you are not on our mailing list and would like to receive a brochure, please sign up here. We hope to see many of you in May.

3rd April 2010 New artist: Ben Catt

We are delighted that Ben Catt has agreed to show his paintings with us beginning at our May exhibition in Mayfair. Ben was born in London and studied sculpture in Newcastle but has now lived in Cornwall for several years and his paintings have been exhibited at several galleries across the West Country. As the suspension of my car will testify, Ben lives deep in the Cornish countryside and his paintings are inspired by the coastline, landscape and prevailing weather conditions around his home.

Recent Ben has been bust preparing for a one-man show at a gallery in St Ives. However, he has also found time to paint for our forthcoming exhibition. This work, fresh off the easel, expresses the calmness, isolation and at ties bleakness of the Cornish winter.

29th March 2010 New artist: Jason Lilley

We are very pleased to announce that Jason Lilley has agreed to exhibit his paintings with us at future events. Jason studied art at Falmouth and Newcastle before settling in Truro. His paintings, which have been shown widely throughout the West Country and further afield, have featured on the ITV programme "Elements" as well as the Channel 4 production "Watercolour Challenge". Increasingly he now uses oils and his paintings of the buildings, roofs and skylines typical of St Ives, are frequently a comment on some of the politics of the tourism trade in Cornwall.

For our May exhibition Jason has painted images that are very characteristic of his more recent work. The full range will be avaiable on this website nearer the time but for the moment here is a personal favourite:

Sunday's Sun, Jason Lilley
Oil on board, 18in x 18in, £895

24th March 2010 Neil Pinkett

We are delighted to be able to add Neil Pinkett to the list of artists whose work we shall be showing in our exhibition in Mayfair in the first week of May. Neil grew up in St Just and although he now spends part of the year in Bath, he still spends a large portion of his time painting from his studio in Marazion overlooking St Michael's Mount. After a career as an illustrator and an art lecturer Neil has become one of Cornwall's foremost landscape painters and we are very much looking forward to exhibiting his work.

Neil travels widely and paints landscapes across the UK. Recently he has been working on a series of paintings of the Scillonian, the boat that connects Penzance to the Scilly Isles, as well as a series of famous bridges across Britain. For our May exhibition Neil has painted several landscapes of West Penwith, all of which beautifully convey the mood and atmosphere of the region. Below are a couple of examples of these paintings. More can be found here.

16th March 2010 Gary Long

We are very pleased to announce that we shall be exhibiting work by Gary Long at both our May exhibition in Mayfair and at the Cambridge Art Fair. Born in Birmingham, Gary studied art in Manchester before working as an illustrator in both publishing and advertising. More recently he has moved to Devon and then to St Ives. He now lectures part-time at the University College, Falmouth.

Gary's paintings accurately capture the dramatic weather and the energy of the coastline of West Cornwall. For our May exhibition he has, among others, painted two fantastic triptychs of waves at local coves.

More details of Gary and other examples of his paintings can be found here.

10th March 2010 Terry Whybrow

We are delighted that Terry Whybrow has agreed to take part in our group exhibition in London in May. Terry was born in St Pancras but has lived in St Ives for 30 years. A furniture designer by trade he has concentrated full-time on paintings since moving to Cornwall. In a reversal of the trend of many artists, Terry's work has become less abstract over time. His early work in Cornwall was heavily influenced by the abstract movement associated with St Ives in the mid-twentieth century. He talks of incessantly painting circles that evolved over time into spheres and later developed into the pots and apples that characterise the still-lifes for which he is best known.

To me his paintings are serene, beautifully composed and extremely stylish. We are very much looking forward to showing them. More details of the May exhibition can be found on our events page. A biography of Terry and more of his paintings will appear on our artists page soon. For the moment here are a couple of the paintings Terry has given us to exhibit:

8th March 2010 Reading Contemporary Art Fair: line-up.

We are very pleased to announce the list of artists whose work we shall be exhibiting at this year's Reading Contemporary Art Fair. The event takes place between the 23rd and 25th of April, 2010 at the Rivermead Leisure Centre, RG1 8EQ. There's a Private View on the Friday evening and general viewing over the weekend. Nearer the time we'll have a limited number of tickets available, both to the Private View and the event itself. Please contact us for details. Alternatively tickets can be bought at the time on the door. More details on our events page. We hope to see some of you there!

The artists we'll be exhibiting are: Brenda King, John Piper, Michael Praed, Ken Symonds, Ges Wilson and Vincent Wilson. Ges' work will include some of her landscapes as well as her figurative work. Ken is sending us some of his watercolours of Penwith which are a personal favourite. And there will be a chance to see the fruits of Michael Praed's intensive winter of painting with some of his most recent work. Here's a very small sample:

28th February 2010 New artist: Brenda King

We are delighted that Brenda King has decided to exhibit with us. Brenda, originally from Cumbria, has been living in Cornwall for over 30 years. After studying at the Lancaster College of Art and the Royal College of Art she worked as a textile designer for Liberty's before embarking on a career painting full time. Her paintings are well known in Cornwall and have been exhibited as far afield as Tokyo and the USA.

Brenda paints in the faux-naive style that has been closely associated with West Cornwall, and St Ives in particular. Her paintings are always vibrant, and beautifully composed. We will have several images of her work and a full biography on this website soon and will be showing her paintings at the Reading Comteporary Art Fair and at our May exhibition. In the meantime here's a sneak preview:

December Colour
Oil on board, 12in x 12in, £750

Table Top With Two Blue Chairs
Oil on board, 8in x 8in, £550

21st February 2010 Michael Praed paints Mullion

We've just spent a week in Cornwall making preparations for the exhibition we have planned in Mayfair in May. More details about that will follow, including some new names to our group of artists. While there I also called in on Michael Praed to see some of his most recent paintings. Michael has been painting predigiously, almost obsessively over the winter and has a great range of new paintings. As ever, his compositions capture the essence of the Cornish winter landscape while retaining unmistakeably his much recognised style.

During this period of great activity Michael produced a set of five paintings of Mullion which we are delighted to be able to show you here and which will form part of our exhibition in May. They represent five different views of Mullion harbour and island, in a range of weathers and lights:

More details of these and other Michael Praed paintings can be found here.

20th January 2010 Cambridge Art Fair announced!

ELEVEN AND A HALF will also be showing paintings at this year's Cambridge Art Fair. This event, now in its fourth year, is held in the Chilford Hall Vineyard and Conference Centre and is a popular event with both exhibitors and attendees. We will be found at stand B9 of the fair which is taking place between the 24th and 27th June 2010. We'll announce which artists' work we'll be showing nearer the time - please keep an eye on our events page for details.

If you're planning on visiting and need tickets, please contact us for details.

In the meantime, here are a couple of images of new paintings by John Piper, some of the first new paintings we've received this year. Further details on the recent additions page.

Cove
Oil on board, 6in x 16in, £500

Cottages at Sennen
Oil on board, 6in x 14in, £460

18th January 2010 Reading Contemporary Art Fair announced!

We are very pleased to have been accepted to hold a stand at the first Reading Contemporary Art Fair. This event, organised by the same people who have been running the successful Windsor Contemporary Art Fair for several years, takes place between the 23rd and 25th of April, 2010. There's a Private View on the Friday evening and general viewing over the weekend. We'll be taking the work of several of our artists along (exact line-up still to be finalised) and it would be great to see you there.

Nearer the time we'll have a limited number of tickets available, both to the Private View and the event itself. Please contact us for details. Alternatively tickets can be bought at the time on the door. More details on our events page.