Ruth Smith Gallery in North Tawton has welcomed its new resident artist.

Ineke Van der Wal, born in the Netherlands, lives and works in the Southwest and started her artistry journey in 1977.

Ineke said: “The paintings in this new body of work, ‘The Return’, exhibit in themselves a challenge and they cannot be easily dismissed neither in their embodiment or presence.

“They are not completely abstract nor figurative, but they are suggestive of both. Whilst the strong intense layered colours and depths of surfaces with dark and light spaces, can compel the viewer to go deeper and deeper into the painting, they also propose to step back and to entice you to stand still, reflect and contemplate.

“The paintings could be suggestive of landscapes and they could be suggestive of portraits. At times fragmented and disjointed, the visuality of the work reflects and suggests the process of coming to terms with the past and the memories of a past which has been lost, yearned for and found again but with a different kind of body. “

‘The Return’ by Ineke will be on display in the town square until Saturday, March 22. Her residency will complete with a talk at 1pm on the last day.

Ineke added: “The Return’ paintings bring with them an air of wishful thinking and melancholy, whilst at the same time rendering a sense of abrupt confrontation.

“A consistent theme, which has been present and of great influence throughout my working practice, are not only the acknowledgment to memories in time and of places. But also the connection, which is felt and reflected upon in an abstracted visualisation, of the beauty of words and in particular poetry where Virginia Woolf, Shakespeare and most of all the words of T.S. Eliot will never leave me.”