News / Show that lifts the spirits on a dull day
Joyce Wark – New Paintings “ @ Vaila Fine Arts
Joyce Wark last had an exhibition at Vaila Fine Art in 2010 where she came on the scene with her amazingly detailed paintings of Shetland, many of Foula.
This new exhibition continues this direction, with more landscape and seascapes and the additions of five portraits of well known faces.
Again the first thing that you notice in her work is the amazing detail – despite this the result is not photo realism, but Wark’s own interpretation of land and seascapes.
Her understanding of the way waves break and dissolve into swirling masses of white and the way the wet grassy slopes of Shetland hills form humps and hollows and peaty banks shows her deep understanding of the land and sea around her home in Bigton.
I asked her if she changes what she sees to suit a composition or if she omits anything, but no, she honestly portrays Shetland as it is, including the necessities of sheep feeding sinks, transformers up poles and septic tank covers.
Indeed I was so accustomed to seeing hydro poles in her paintings that I missed them in her painting of Bigton, until she told me there were none, the wires are underground.
On the same painting of one of those amazing sunsets that gets us all running for our cameras, the sky colour is reflected off a wet concrete path which helps to tie the almost unbelievable sky to the land below.
Her works are meticulous and time consuming, taking the two years from her last exhibition to complete the 20 odd works in the latest exhibition.
Her drawing forms the basis of these paintings, not hidden but emphasising edges in the work, even the line of a breaking wave.
I’m scared of green, a notoriously difficult colour, and tend to avoid using it. Joyce celebrates green, from vivid mossy yellow to brownish green hilltops. Her large painting of the north end of Foula is a riot of greens with shafts of sunlight.
Every painting celebrates detail and texture. On West Burrafirth Road the gravelly worn out road surface becomes one of the main features looking like it’s in need of a surface dressing.
Horizon is a fine seascape with the north end of St Ninians Isle. On a windy day the sea is blustery and you can see the heave of the swell as it rolls onto the banks of the isle.
I liked her painting of a Shetland tree, the low viewpoint looking up through the branches into the rather sparse crown. The reflections in the burn below are outstanding. Wark is to be encouraged to find some ‘proper’ trees to develop this theme.
There are flowers and undergrowth in several paintings, particularly ‘Chandrick Iris’, but the result avoids prettiness and the flowers have to survive a tough existence beside the gravelly edge of the burn.
Don’t forget to look in detail at the skies with wonderful folding and billowing cloudy textures, really difficult in watercolour. They remind me of the wet oily clouds in the paintings of Scottish landscapes with huge skies by the contemporary painter James Morrison (look at the Scottish Gallery website for his current exhibition there).
The five portraits are all good portrayals of the sitters, in settings typical of each person.
It’s a fine exhibition to lift the spirits on a dull winters day.
At Vaila Fine Art – open on days with a T in them (Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturdays)
Mike Finnie
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