RWA 'Power of the Sea' Making waves in British Art

This exhibition was on my ‘to do’ list since a friend told me about it. June was turning out to be a pretty busy month, but with train tickets booked ages ago, there was no way I was missing this exhibition. The Royal West of England Academy’s ‘The Power of the Sea’, was a clever mix of sculpture and painting, old and new which was stunning. There wasn’t one piece that I didn’t like.

Of the older work, Joan Eardley was my favourite and they were surprisingly large. A keen fan of her work, her colours were beautiful, and full of raw emotion and energy.

I particularly liked the contemporary and felt very akin to Janette Kerr’s seascapes and the waves of Maggi Hamblin and want to find out more about the work of Gail harvey who’s abstracts I couldn’t quite grasp and also the work of Will Maclean who uses flotsam and jetsam to create very unusual pieces.

Terry Setch constructed a triptych of panels, heavily painted and laden with all sorts of rubbish found on the severn estuary which was encased in a dense layer of pva and plastic. Disturbing and ugly, it was very engaging and also sending a powerful message about how we are mistreating our coastlines.

There are too many artists involved to go into it in too much detail but there is more info here

I hadn’t been to Bristol for years, so it was nice to reacquaint myself, especially with the area at the top of park street where the Academy is situated and we walked out to Clifton, or Clifton Village as its now called with lovely cafes, small shops and galleries, had lunch and then popped into the city museum and gallery before heading back to the station to wend our way home.