Shipyard
The motivation to make this painting was the announced closure of Appledore Shipyard in March 2019. The Appledore yard was founded in 1855 on the estuary of the River Torridge. It has subsequently been reopened by Belfast shipyard Harland and Wolff together with Infrastrata.
Looking towards the Torridge to the right of the yard is a shallow bay. In this bay many vessels have been moored, to decay and rot away. At the time this bay seemed to be a symbolic metaphor for the decline of ship building in the area. The shipyard itself is represented by a small grey building on the left of the painting.
It was a testing piece of work especially in trying to capture the mudflats and shoreline textures.
This old, decaying barge still retains an element of elegance and is rich in symbolism of past histories.
The old fishing boat, slowly sinking into the mud provides a strong foreground component, the mast leading beautifully into the composition.
Pete Newell talks about his paintings discussing his methodology, composition and process.
Pete's paintings are all made using good quality acrylics on professional standard linen or cotton canvases such as those by Winsor and Newton. They have warp resistant kiln-dried, bevelled solid pine stretcher bars. The canvases are archival and acid free. Each painting is varnished with appropriate acrylic varnish and simply framed by Pete. The frames are easily removed if a purchaser wishes to re-frame a painting.
The paintings on this website are all nautical or maritime in their subject matter. Pete does have paintings embracing other subjects and he can show you these using either Google Meet, Zoom or WhatsApp.
His paintings are all for sale. Selling is an interesting point for artists. Pete's belief is that "painting is communication and that to complete the creative circle one's art needs to have an audience to communicate to." The act of selling is to complete that creative circle.
Shipyard - 2019
Original Pete Newell paintings available for sale
| Medium: Acrylic on canvas | ||
| This painting has been sold | ||
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