Welland Valley Art Society Spring Exhibition 2016. A Personal View.

A great day yesterday because I did my stint of stewarding for the Welland Valley Art Society's Spring Exhibition in the Wilfred Wood gallery in Stamford Art Centre.

Private View of the Spring Exhibition.

One of the joys of belonging to a society is the other people. Stewarding duty it's always with another member, and it's such a wonderful opportunity to talk about art, as if we needed an excuse! It's also a great opportunity to look at the display in detail, something that I couldn't do at the private view because it was jammed packed.

My thoughts on this exhibition:
My overall
impression of the exhibition was one of infinite variety, albeit within the limited confines of representational art. There were only 2 abstract paintings and 3 abstract 3D works. I seem to remember more in the past.

The gallery is a white airy space and shows off the work well.

The winner of the Gladys Teesdale Award this year was Helen Lopez with her lovely elegant plaster sculpture for bronze  "Eve". Although I'm a painter I was pleased to see this work which was so perfect winning. And Helen is a new member of the society so it was doubly satisfying to see her success.

There were other awards:
The John Fountain Award for work based on direct observation of the human form went to Jonty Meyer for his sculpture "The Bather"

And commendations for work by Barbara Allen, David Cromack, Roy Holley and Philip Spence.

In case you get the impression that the exhibition was mainly sculptures of people with no clothes on it wasn't! Of the 135 works displayed from 55 artists only 20 works were 3 dimensional. There was a whole gallery full of paintings, including 36 watercolours, that would look at home in any domestic setting.  I didn't see many large works though which is different from previous years.

Of course I had a favourite, Barbara Allen's "After the Frost".
Blues and woodland. You could loose yourself in it.


There was plenty to enjoy for all tastes, precise work counterbalanced by more impressionistic paintings. Lots of colour. Perhaps I should have counted how many pieces were monochrome.

When I got home I did a little Number crunching.
Which might be of some interest.
There were 135 works exhibited from 55 artists.
3D works. 20
Acrylic paintings. 23
Oil paintings. 35
Watercolours 36
Pencil drawings. 2
Pastel drawings 11
Pen and wash. 7
Mixed media art. 9.
Framing was very low key. Gone are the days of the gilded swept frame (thank goodness!). Most frames were either black, white or grey. There were 11 gold frames, 2 silver, 20 pale wood, 4 dark wood and one red.

At the end of my stewarding duty I left feeling I'd spent a few hours in the company of some beautiful art. You can't say fairer than that!