Visit to Gallery Oldham, Thursday 13th September 2012
Liam Spencer Exhibition
This artist is a local man who has, in recent years, become a very successful painter, and the exhibition covered his work from his early days as a student to date.
The first pictures we looked at were charcoal drawings. One the figure of a man with a beard sitting in a chair with his arm resting on the back, and the other was of the figure of what looked like a nude bending forward to pick something up in what was almost a running position. These were very large pictures and very effective when looked at from a distance. He drew these in 1999.
The next painting we looked at in detail was of his two young sons which he did in the early 1980s. As Ann described it the youngest boy was on a settee and a slightly older boy leaning against it. They were watching television and the picture was that of the Teletubbies and painting in considerable detail. By contrast his paint stroked of the rest of the painting were very relaxed; effective from a distance, but quite blurry if looked at very closely.
A quite large painting was the scene of surfers on a beach: quite bright contrasting colours carrying their surf boards, and they and their boards were reflected in puddles. As Ann quite vividly described it she felt as though she could dip her finger into the water reflected, it was so very realistic. Liam has managed to perfect this particular skill by his use of translusent paint and the way he uses them; a very individual signiture in his paintings.
The curator Dinah Winch was fortunate enough to visit Liam in his studio and had the time of her life rumaging through a large number of his paintings quite varied in subject matter. During his work Liam had seen a panoramic photograph of a Lancashire scene which was very industrial with many mills and chimneys. He learnt that a modern photographer was going to take a photograph of a similar scene from a cherry picker and was lucky enough to be invited to join him when he himself took panoramic photographs of the scene which was now quite devoid of the industrial buildings and chimneys. He then joined these photographs together and we saw these displayed in a case at the exhibition and he has then painted his own panoramic scene which is huge, about 14 feet long, absolutely beautiful, and colourful.
There was another of the paintings selected for us to view which was of Picadilly and very reminiscent of the painting we had seen by Lowry at our recent visit to his exhibition.
Liam Spencer is a prolific painter and the exhibition contained a lot of his own work as well as many borrowed from other galleries, and also private collectors. We don't very often talk about prices but one of our group asked Dinah if she knew how his paintings were selling and she said that when he announced a forthcoming exhibition of new work people were queueing to have first dabs at the new work.
His current paintings are sold for anything between £3000 and up to £100,000, and he is a wonderful success story for this part of the world.
Ann's descriptions, as always, enabled me to really visualise what was in the paintings and Dinah's background information about the painter himself and the history of a particular work made this visit very special. We had a lovely hot drink and lots of munchy biscuits at the end of the visit and our greatful thanks to Dinah and Ann for their attention to detail and to Mary and her merry band of volunteers who make it possible for us to enjoy these gallery visits so much. Thank you everybody.
This artist is a local man who has, in recent years, become a very successful painter, and the exhibition covered his work from his early days as a student to date.
The first pictures we looked at were charcoal drawings. One the figure of a man with a beard sitting in a chair with his arm resting on the back, and the other was of the figure of what looked like a nude bending forward to pick something up in what was almost a running position. These were very large pictures and very effective when looked at from a distance. He drew these in 1999.
The next painting we looked at in detail was of his two young sons which he did in the early 1980s. As Ann described it the youngest boy was on a settee and a slightly older boy leaning against it. They were watching television and the picture was that of the Teletubbies and painting in considerable detail. By contrast his paint stroked of the rest of the painting were very relaxed; effective from a distance, but quite blurry if looked at very closely.
A quite large painting was the scene of surfers on a beach: quite bright contrasting colours carrying their surf boards, and they and their boards were reflected in puddles. As Ann quite vividly described it she felt as though she could dip her finger into the water reflected, it was so very realistic. Liam has managed to perfect this particular skill by his use of translusent paint and the way he uses them; a very individual signiture in his paintings.
The curator Dinah Winch was fortunate enough to visit Liam in his studio and had the time of her life rumaging through a large number of his paintings quite varied in subject matter. During his work Liam had seen a panoramic photograph of a Lancashire scene which was very industrial with many mills and chimneys. He learnt that a modern photographer was going to take a photograph of a similar scene from a cherry picker and was lucky enough to be invited to join him when he himself took panoramic photographs of the scene which was now quite devoid of the industrial buildings and chimneys. He then joined these photographs together and we saw these displayed in a case at the exhibition and he has then painted his own panoramic scene which is huge, about 14 feet long, absolutely beautiful, and colourful.
There was another of the paintings selected for us to view which was of Picadilly and very reminiscent of the painting we had seen by Lowry at our recent visit to his exhibition.
Liam Spencer is a prolific painter and the exhibition contained a lot of his own work as well as many borrowed from other galleries, and also private collectors. We don't very often talk about prices but one of our group asked Dinah if she knew how his paintings were selling and she said that when he announced a forthcoming exhibition of new work people were queueing to have first dabs at the new work.
His current paintings are sold for anything between £3000 and up to £100,000, and he is a wonderful success story for this part of the world.
Ann's descriptions, as always, enabled me to really visualise what was in the paintings and Dinah's background information about the painter himself and the history of a particular work made this visit very special. We had a lovely hot drink and lots of munchy biscuits at the end of the visit and our greatful thanks to Dinah and Ann for their attention to detail and to Mary and her merry band of volunteers who make it possible for us to enjoy these gallery visits so much. Thank you everybody.
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