Huge congratulations to NSA member Tanya Krzywinska, who has been awarded an MBE in the King’s Birthday Honours for her contributions to Higher Education and the Video Games Industry.
Tanya is Professor of Digital Games at Falmouth University. In a post on the University’s website (see link below), Associate Professor Doug Brown said Tanya’s ‘Groundbreaking research and fearless experimentation have pushed the boundaries of what games can achieve, elevating their status as a legitimate art form and demonstrating the transformative value of games’ potential in health, heritage and culture.’
Last year NSA members had the opportunity to work with Tanya to create dimensions of augmented (AR) and virtual reality (VR) within their work. This was part of Falmouth and Exeter Universities’ Immersive Business outreach project, funded by European Regional Development Fund. These AR and VR artworks were exhibited in the launch show for two new apps created by Tanya and fellow NSA member Professor Penny Florence for Tremenheere Gardens. They were then shown in ‘Engage’, the NSA’s Spring show in 2023.
As well as her university teaching, research and academic writing, Tanya is a painter. She regularly shows her work with the NSA and in solo and group exhibitions at the Crypt Gallery in St Ives and other galleries in the area. We are very proud to have Tanya with us in the NSA.
www.falmouth.ac.uk/news/falmouth-academic-awarded-mbe-kings-birthday-honours
NSA member Mike Newton’s exhibition Spring Cannot Be Cancelled is currently showing at the Borlase Smart Room, Porthmeor Studios, St Ives.
Here he explains the genesis and development of the project:
“But you knew there would always be the spring…”
Ernest Hemingway
This series of paintings was undertaken as a response to a series of poems by Mike Stevens loosely based on the theme of Spring. My task was to work outside of my comfort zone (Portraits) and draw inspiration from the poems to come up with a body of work that was still recognisable as my own. The title for the resulting series of paintings comes from David Hockney’s book describing his work completed during the COVID lockdown. Chosen firstly because one of the breakthrough paintings was prompted by a poem written by Mike during lockdown and secondly it seemed for a few weeks that we wouldn’t have a venue to show the work in Spring.
To create my selective responses to a different subject, not just in terms of aesthetics but also feelings, I started by sketching ideas on paper in pencil and then in paint. For imagery I have drawn heavily on the work of others not as copy of the artists’ original but endeavouring to achieve a deepening of meaning through a creative conversation between the poetry and the original paintings, and my own re-workings of them both.
The show runs until Sunday 19th May and there is Private View and reading on Friday 17th May 7-9pm
Immerse yourself in the colourful, large-scale paintings of Heather McAlpine, a St Ives based artist and NSA member inspired by the sea and her love of wild swimming. As Heather McAlpine prepares for her inaugural solo exhibition at the Crypt Gallery, aptly titled Immerse, she has undertaken the challenge of painting her largest canvas to date, a monumental 2 x 1.7m. Her paintings embody the essence of St Ives’ unique colour palette and reflect not only the striking visual aspect of the ocean but also the sensory and emotional experiences that come with it.
Born in Stirling, Scotland, Heather McAlpine’s creative journey led her to London, where she earned an MA from the Royal College of Art. Then, after 16 years of living and painting in Vancouver, Canada, fate guided her to the rugged shores of Cornwall, where she has found solace and inspiration for the past eight years. She now works from her studio in historic ‘Downalong’, nestled in between three of her favourite beaches.
The exhibition promises an immersive experience into her world, reflecting her deep affinity for the sea, wild swimming and the immersive process of painting itself. The exhibition will include a range of paintings, from her small ‘captured moments’ on paper to her large, semi-abstract expressive canvases.
Crypt Gallery, Norway Square, St Ives, TR26 1NA.
Saturday 11th – Friday 17th May 10 – 5pm daily.
PV Sat 11th May 4-7pm. (All welcome)
NSA member Yolande Armstrong will be showing new work in an exhibition of her paintings at Daisy Laing Gallery, Old Bakehouse Lane, Chapel Street in Penzance, opening on 12th March. 
Yolande describes the thinking and the process behind the work:
Women have been, and still are, silenced in many ways in cultures across the globe – expected to be quiet and reticent and to behave acceptably. But women, like other marginalised groups, have also used silence and body language as a way of creating communication and of rebelling. These paintings celebrate the possibilities of a rich ferment of thoughts, feelings, emotions and potential for action behind the signalling which women present to the world.
The work is based on a collection of photographs made over many years, some taken by me, some shared by others. While a photographic image is a fleeting moment captured by mechanical means, translating a photograph into painting is a tactile process using human skills and physical materials to make marks and meaning over a period of time.
The nature of painting has enabled me to explore posture, gesture, positioning of figures and historical and social context, and to suggest through the use of paint medium new layers of meaning, interesting resonances. The flaws, or peculiarities which we might now quickly delete in digital images, are often rich and suggestive…
The show runs until 1st April and the gallery is open Tuesday to Saturday, plus Easter Sunday and Monday.
‘Noa’ Notes from the margins
23-24 Sept at The Lafrowda Club, St Just, Cornwall. 6-9pm.
Two evenings featuring a collaborative installation between Mike Thorpe and Terry Gibson with soundscapes, film and artworks from a residency early this year at Brisons Veor.
Free admission
NSA members Heather McAlpine and Mike Newton, together with Lynette Pierce, have an exhibition 3 ST. IVES PAINTERS, at the Crypt Gallery, St. Ives.
They would love you to join them for a glass of wine at the Private View this Saturday 22nd July 3 – 5pm.
The exhibition is open daily 10.30 – 5.00 and runs until Friday 28th July. It’s a great show – hope you can make it!
NSA member Mike Newton is taking part in a special exhibition at the St Ives School of Painting. The Living and the Dead is a collaboration between painter Mike Newton, poet Mike Stevens and sound artist Christian Guerrini, all living and working in St Ives. The exhibition features Mike Newton’s portraits of six Romantic poets and Mike Steven’s poetry based on redacted words from the same poets together with further portraits and original poems by Newton and Stevens . The private view on Friday 30th December 6.30 – 9pm will include a reading of the poems by Mike Stevens with sounds by Christian Guerrini and a Q&A session giving the background to the genesis of the project. Limited seating and drinks are provided. The show runs from 27th December to 2nd January at the Borlase Smart Room, St Ives School of Painting, Back Road West, St Ives.
NSA member Daniel Turner will be exhibiting his work at the Picture Room, Newlyn Art Gallery in a show entitled The Paint Club.
On show will be a series of small, individually framed, oil on panel paintings made over the last two years, part of an ongoing series The Paint Club. The themes within the works include peril, loss, devotion, and salvation.
“I like the notion that all painters essentially operate under the same conditions and that painting is somehow a different thing Art wise. I think once you realise painters paint the way they do because they can’t do it any other way, have spent years working towards this realisation, then Painting and the trappings of The Painter become interesting subjects in their own right.”
Daniel Turner is a contemporary British artist working in Cornwall whose work examines the rituals of the painter, the act of painting and the nature and functions of the painting and the studio.
The exhibition runs from 5th November 2022 to 7th January 2023 at the NEWLYN ART GALLERY, New Road, Newlyn, TR18 5PZ
Hils Tranter is featured artist in October 2022 at The Gurnard’s Head, St Ives, TR26 3DE
EVENT: Meet the Artist
Saturday, 29 October 2022, 10.30–11.30
Meet October Artist of the Month, Hils Tranter, over tea and cake in the snug at The Gurnard’s Head.
ALL WELCOME – FREE OF CHARGE.
Hils Tranter lives and works in a quiet rural haven in west Penwith, surrounded by space and skies. Her artwork is rooted in observation – responses to internal and external weather and landscape – following what draws her attention. Journalling and mindful mark-making is at the core of her practice, often linked with themes of music, movement, rhythms and dance. Play, experimentation and daydreaming are essential to getting in the zone where magic can happen. Hils says:
“There’s usually an experience or a moment I’m trying to express or capture, though sometimes it feels like clutching at smoke.”
Instagram:
@hilstranterart
@gurnardshead
