Show dates: 14 – 31 August 2010

Stephen Prince

“I enjoy painting, when it goes well. The challenge is to find your way to somewhere new, to something you’ve not discovered before. It’s a personal journey. Alan Davie talks about being one’s own alchemist. For me a good painting is one that sustains contemplation.
The act of painting has led me to believe consistently that a pathway to integrity (and other discoveries) can sustain a personal journey if one follows the example of Picasso’s dictum; “A painting is the sum of its destructions”, or Pasmore’s, “If we take a sheet of paper and scribble on it vigorously we become involved in the process of bringing into being something concrete and visible which was not there before… we find ourselves directing its course… until finally an image appears which surprises us by its familiarity and touches us as if awakening forgotten memories…”
Always at the back of my mind is a notion of the West Penwith landscape, which I ‘discovered’ for myself back in the 1970s. I have sought, on and off, an equivalent in paint on canvas ever since. Attempting to configure something of the power, the dynamism, and the excitement of being on the cliffs at Pendeen, Botallack, or at Cape Cornwall, or overlooking the harbour in St Ives on a blustery winter or blue sky spring day. In the end it’s all a diary – a kind of journal of personal events. “

Stephen Prince was born in Essex in 1952. From 1972-1975 he studied at the Plymouth School of Art and at the Central School of Art and Design, London, gaining a BA (Hons) in Fine Art. As a young student at the Central School Stephen discovered for himself the mysteries and marvels of West Penwith when he took absence without leave and camped in and around St Just for ten days in the spring of 1975. The drawings with which he returned to London impressed his tutors and inspired painter David Haughton to revisit the area with small groups of students in the following year. Such trips became a permanent feature of teaching at the Central for several years. Stephen also continued to visit West Penwith longing to live and work in this area as a permanent resident finally realising his ambition in 2006. His work is in a number of public and private collections including The Contemporary Arts Society, London, and Works for Schools, Sheffield.

Recent exhibitions include:

Salthouse Gallery, St Ives
“Abstract 6″, Arts Club, St Ives
Great Atlantic Gallery, Falmouth
Cape Cornwall Golf Club (‘Affordable Art’)
Great Atlantic Gallery, Bank Square, St Just-in-Penwith, Cornwall
Great Atlantic ‘Map Works’ Gallery, St Just-in-Penwith, Cornwall
Christmas Mixed Exhibition, Martin’s Gallery, Cheltenham
Cheltenham Art Prize 04, University Gallery Cheltenham
Contact Details: tel. 01736 351298
email:
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