Artwork of the Month - October 2006
Washed Upon Guernsey
Artist: Nicola White
Medium: Painted driftwood collage
Status: Loaned by the artist
Item No.: -
The Artist and Her Work
Nicola White shares her time between London and Guernsey, spending 3 months of the year in St Sampson's, where her family now lives.
Born in Cornwall in 1968, Nicola grew up by the sea and is particularly influenced by the naïve styles of the St Ives artists, Alfred Wallis and Bryan Pearce.
Following her family's relocation to Guernsey, Nicola has continued her explorations of the coast and sea through her work.
"I am fascinated by pieces of worn driftwood and the secrets they hold, lying on the shore of a beach or wedged behind the rocks. Fragments of wood with faded and chipped layers of paint - do they come from a long forgotten and once loved boat or an old piece of furniture? What purpose did they serve before finally coming to rest on a windswept beach? What stories they could tell if they could speak...
'Washed Upon Guernsey' is made from pieces of wood collected along Ladies Bay and L'Ancresse. The individual quirky shapes and characters are put back together like an abstract jigsaw puzzle and brought back to life to create a picture of a typical Guernsey harbour scene which may have been part of their past.
The wood is kept as simple and natural as possible with minimal addition of paint. This, both to respect the natural shaping of the wood by the sea, and to reflect the naïve and childlike style of the picture".
