Pathways: An Exhibition of Paintings

Helen Billinghurst, Matt Thomas and Kevin Tole live in close proximity to each other; their work is diverse, but they share a mutual interest in making paintings that refer to geology, geography and moving through space. This exhibition will explore the differences and similarities in the ways they approach this subject matter.

Meet the artists: Saturday 28 May, 12 - 2.30 pm

Open Monday - Saturday, 10 am - 5 pm, and Sundays 10 am - 3 pm

“My process begins with walking; I wander through the modern environment and record the deep topography using photograph, video, drawings and writing, and from those sources I make paintings and other artworks. I consider the absurd juxtapositions of modern life: interrupted lines of thought, car journeys, the banality of advertising, local story and personal memories and mythologies. The work explores orientation: psychological and physical, and in space and time, and draws from memories that arise when walking, as much as the environments I move through. I am interested in wild urban space, the cracks in the pavement, the gaps and in-between spaces. I am affected by layers of peeling paint, creeping lichen, distressed billboards and discarded shopping lists. I record the trajectory of a bird in flight and a crisp packet swirling on a gust of wind.
I am an artist, educator and researcher living in the South West of the UK. I am a part-time PhD candidate in the performance of Plymouth University. I teach painting and drawing, and am an associate lecturer at Plymouth College of Art. ”
Helen Billinghurst

“I see my work as reflecting a close attachment to landscape and in particular to geology, which I studied when I left Plymouth and which, through my association with the mining and offshore rig businesses, has been a big part of my life and experiences. Since being made redundant from the oil industry I have been able to concentrate on my painting and push it forward developing the qualities which are important to me. These qualities are all painterly and thoroughly non-conceptual.”
Kevin Tole

“My work is concerned with the development of narratives, telling stories that are often fragmented and incomplete, stories that draw on and layer aspects of memory, imagination and lived experience. Largely abstract, the paintings are inspired and informed by the concept of landscape as a dynamic, experiential and immersive process, rather than a fixed idea. One of the ways this dynamism is manifest visually is through a preoccupation with pattern, light and reflection and how these things can challenge the ‘reality’ of what we see when we move through the world.”
Matt Thomas

For more information visit http://www.harbourhouse.org.uk/g16-3painters.shtml