Monday 28 April 2014

New Work - New Opportunities

'A Journey Through Paint,' oil and acrylic on canvas, 95 x 54cm
My diary for this coming month is full. It is getting to the point where preparing work for shows, and doing all the admin work and website updates, social media updates, and all web-related, promotional admin is taking over from actual painting! But these two paintings are some of the recent work.

I have to deliver two paintings to the Llewellyn Alexander gallery (London) in May, for the NOT THE ROYAL ACADEMY EXHIBITION, and they are still not framed. I am showing some work at The Art Pull gallery, in Tunbridge Wells (Kent, UK), in the middle of May. I'm entering a portrait for a portrait exhibition, which is a long shot as it will be very competitive. I haven't painted a portrait for a while and it was a very interesting thing to do. Also I have several applications for exhibitions pending and I am still planning a show in Cyprus with a friend, though currently we are looking for a venue.

'Paphos Walk,' (2) acrylic on canvas, 60 x 50cm
My work is still hanging in Camden Quarter (Tunbridge Wells restaurant), and every time I walk past the bright colours catch my eye. I think they catch everyones' eyes as they walk by!

I have also made a few updates to my novel's details and hope to get on with the sequel soon. The link is:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Jagged-Green-Line-Fiona-Stanbury-ebook/dp/B00IIOX92Q/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1398699203&sr=1-1&keywords=fiona+stanbury

Thursday 17 April 2014

Older work

Priest, oil on canvas
For this pre-Easter post, I'm adding some older work that I made when I lived in Cyprus. I finally scanned the photos of this work onto a CD and loaded them onto my computer. I have added them to my website too. I'm thinking to start painting portraits again, as an addition to my other work. When I lived in Cyprus, it was always a good source of income. The above portrait was painted over a week. The priest sat for me very patiently, in between seeing to funeral services! He liked the portrait so much that he ordered a second one, for his brother, though it was painted from a different angle.

The Priest with his portrait
This gives an idea of the size of the portrait.

This is part of a mural I made for a tavern. The owner wanted me to paint both walls of a corridor, which were roughly 30 foot by 9 foot high. On this wall I painted an image that showed a tavern. Half of the painting shows a man approaching the tavern in daylight, smartly dressed and ready to meet  his friends.
My Mural
 The other half shows him leaving at night, dishevelled and drunk. His wife is waiting at their house nearby, with a stick in her hand. This is what the tavern owner asked me to paint and her customers loved it, saying it reminded them of their wives! It took me about 5 days to paint, using housepaint. I invented the picture as I went along. Here is the night part: there is even a snail climbing up the side of the painting.

My Mural

On the other side of the corridor, I painted a scene of Cypriot houses:

The Second Mural
I completed literally hundreds of portraits and various commissions during my time in Cyprus. I love working large like this; it's when I feel most myself and that I have the freedom to spill out all my imagery without restrictions. The sad thing is that these murals are probably not in existence any more, because the building seems to have been renovated and I am sure they painted the corridors with something else.

Monday 7 April 2014

Camden Quarter

'The Beyond,' acrylic on canvas, 40 x 40cm
I have just hung several paintings in a very beautiful, new restaurant in Tunbridge Wells, called CAMDEN QUARTER. The bold interior reminds me of New York restaurants, and as one of the walls is brown bricks, it called for bold, colourful work. There was really only space for three medium to large canvases, and one smaller one. On Friday I hung three canvases. One was  WE ARE ALL NOMADS (posted below), the largest, and the other two canvases are 75 by 75cms. I will post photos of the restaurant this week.  They are waiting for one more, smaller canvas to complete the set.

'We Are All Nomads,' oil and acrylic on canvas. 110 x 80cm

Other than that, I am pushing on with more work. Here is another of the Spring-based work.

'The Beyond,' (3) oil and acrylic on canvas, 35 x 24cm