EVOCATIVE oil paintings of the Tamar Valley landscape by well-known artist Mary Martin are going on display at the Tamar Valley Centre from Saturday, May 25.
This new collection of more than 50 of Mary’s paintings are a love letter in paint to her beloved home area.
The daffodil fields and apple blossom of the valley are captured in oils in the exhibition, which runs until June 2.
Since completing her studies at the Royal Academy Schools and after decades of painting out-of-doors, Mary works quickly to capture those rare and fleeting effects of light that excite and inspire her to paint familiar landscapes as richly coloured, special places with universal appeal.
Different tides, times of day and seasons (including unusual touches of ice and snow) are closely observed and portrayed, revealing the fragile beauty of this land that deserves our attention and careful protection.
Bluebells spill from ancient hedge-banks, drift across ferny woodland and soften the edges of worked stone that litters the flanks of Kit Hill. Rare fields of cultivated daffodils catch attention, their brilliant yellows contrasting with pale pheasant-eye varieties found in regenerating sun-dappled woodland.
Flamboyant magnolias tower above the semi-wild garden and, in the mature orchard of local varieties of apple planted by Mary and her husband James more than 30 years ago, are canopies of translucent blossom and boughs of fruit.
The exhibition opens at 2pm on Saturday, May 25 and is then open every day from 11am to 6pm up until Sunday, June 2 at the Tamar Valley Centre on Cemetery Road, Drakewalls, Gunnislake.
