Where the Wind Blows art exhibition opens

Yore Mill Gallery at Aysgarth Falls new exhibition of Liz Salter’s paintings opens today (1st September) through to the end of October.   

Liz has always painted. A career in Theatre Design was followed by teaching textiles and embroidery at colleges in Yorkshire before taking up painting full time and gaining an MA in Fine Art at the University of Leeds. Liz exhibits widely in Britain and in Ireland and has received the award of “South Yorkshire Artist of the Year”.

Liz’s paintings are lively and energetic evocations of the many moods of our wild hills and terrain. Her inspiration comes from walking and exploring wild and rugged landscape. Always looking, she often stops and draws, seeking to convey the feel of the place, the changeable weather and winds as well as the smell of the earth. She is attracted to the energy and wildness of the landscape and to the sense of its history and past being ever present.

The paintings are made in her studio. She studies her sketchbooks looking for the drawings that speak of the experience. Then the adventure begins, exploring possibilities much as she explored new terrain. Images are built up on paper maybe using collage, liquid graphite, or ink. Layers of thin and thick acrylic paint are intermingled with line. Liz draws on her memories as much as the sketches, remembering the scents on the wind and the changing light, vivid recollections of the experience. The painting becomes a visual equivalent for that experience with the colour reflecting her scrutiny and observation of the changes in the shape of the weather and the light on the land.

Liz often ponders and asks herself, is the painting finished? This is only achieved when it speaks back to her of the remembered atmosphere and sense of the place recreating a very special and vivid experience for her. She says “I feel that my paintings are optimistic and show my deep appreciation of the landscape, and a profound respect for nature. I hope they convey a sense of the living, breathing landscape”

The exhibition is on at the Yoremill Gallery at Aysgarth Falls until the end of October.  Find out more at the website www.yoremillcraftshopandgallery.co.uk