contact: E: info@franceshatch.co.uk  M: 07946903930

DEVON
Working visits to Devon in 2013, 2014, 2016, 2017. A selection of work in progress and completed works.


WITH RED EARTH UNDER MY NAILS
Research for solo show at The Thelma Hulbert Gallery, Honiton, 9 September- 28 October  2017. 

'Way back in 1950 my parents chose Sidmouth for their honeymoon. All I had ever seen of it was through tiny black and white snaps in the family album. Stopping off in Sidmouth as an adult and seeing clouded red sea water and creamed wave break rolling in on to beach fringed with wind-carved cliff coloured the past and the present with an intense warmth. The heat of Mercia Mudstone and Otter Sandstone- a Triassic geology born of desert, shifting sands and flash flood, presents delicious pigment. As I’ve researched for this show, I’ve been getting to know the warm, subtle variety of palettes in locations like Fremington Quay, Dartmoor, Westward Ho! and Abbotsham. And of course sourcing and working with the intensity of Bideford Black’.
I pause to consider the age and the natural processes involved in the formation of the pigments I use- it is important to me that I attempt to 'get my head around it'. I never quite get beyond a feeling of overwhelm at the sheer complexity and deep time involved. It does however ‘put me in my place’ not as an adult might have done when I was a child- but it situates me on the very top layer- and in the present.
​As I work away - on the ground as I do without an easel- I have an opportunity to get to know my place on and in the good earth'.
​FH June 2017
​

SIDMOUTH
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IMMATURE HERRING GULL. SIDMOUTH ESPLANADE. gouache with Mercia Mudstone and Otter Sandstone on card. 2017. 16x20cm unframed dimensions.
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SIDMOUTH ESPLANADE, FOIL AT DAWN. SIDMOUTH ESPLANADE: NIGHT. gouache with collage, Mercia Mudstone and Otter Sandstone on card. 2017. 16x20cm unframed dimensions.
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SIDMOUTH ESPLANADE: NIGHT. gouache with Mercia Mudstone and Otter Sandstone on card. 2017. 16x20cm unframed dimensions.
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STORM SURF BOARDING. gouache with Mercia Mudstone and Otter Sandstone on card. 2017. 16x20cm unframed dimensions.

GREENCLIFF: work generated in response to Greencliff around the site of the Bideford Black seam. Scroll down to see process, sketchbooks and works in progress. 

Greencliff near Abbotsham on the coast of North Devon. 
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Wind formed 1. Bideford Black on white card. 20x15cm
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Wind formed 2. Bideford Black on white card. 20x15cm
Fremington Quay: work in progress 2013, 2014, 2017
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IN PROGRESS at Fremington Quay

Wistman's Wood: sketchbook. local earths and gouache on grey card. November 2013

Black a Tor Wood. November 2013
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