Elemental

THE MINSTER GALLERY

CONTEMPORARY ART

Andy Waite

ELEMENTAL

19th May - 12th June 2017

THE MINSTER GALLERY

CONTEMPORARY ART

presents

ELEMENTAL

an exhibition of new paintings by

Andy Waite

Private View Friday 19th May 2017

from noon until 3pm and from 6pm - 8.30pm

The exhibition continues until 12th June 2017
and can be viewed online at www.minstergallery.co.uk

3a Great Minster Street, Winchester, Hampshire SO23 9HA
01962 877601 [email protected] www.minstergallery.com

The Birch Awake the Sleeping Woods 80cm x 190cm Oil on Canvas

Painting is an intensely personal activity that I feel compelled to do. It is also a way to express the elements in myself that often lie
buried in the subconscious, and I look to the landscape and the weather not just because they are things of wonder and beauty,
but because they reflect my own wandering moods, be they light or dark.
I make the work primarily for myself to free these feelings, and when a painting feels right then I feel at one.

Exhibiting your work can make you feel vulnerable as you are sharing your deepest personal expression, but at the same time there’ s
an undeniable need to want to connect with anyone who might be moved by what you have offered.
I work in a fairly abstracted way which certainly reflects at least some of my own thought patterns and what appeals to me about most
art forms are things that seep into the consciousness slowly, that aren't obvious, that perhaps you only get a suggestion of initially, that
don't tell you the whole story straight away, but which at the same time intrigue and move you; give you a deeper perception of what it
is to be human.
I think that painting is also a way to have somewhere other to go in a world full of distractions and chatter. We live with an overload of
information and communication, and while those can be good or useful things, the need to divulge our every waking thought and action
has reached extreme levels and one is led to ask, where is the quiet and the inner reflection? Painting gives me this.

The paintings are made from a combination of swiftly made sketches in the field, and photographs which I also make drawings from.
I may then focus on one area of the drawing that excites in terms of colour and form and produce a painting from that. From the drawing
a painting will begin to emerge, sometimes changing in mood or composition, but always with a sense that in time, something will
appear that resonates. So although based on real places the paintings are becoming, increasingly, landscapes of the soul.

The process itself can be equal parts joy and despair, it can be arduous and dark - when it works it's wonderful, when it doesn't it's a
giant, obstructive and overwhelming beast, that won’t always be tamed. Sometimes it's better to let it crash through the woods and
exhaust itself. Then there are the places it can lead you to that you didn't expect, and those can be some of the most rewarding.
It would appear that without this ongoing back and forth storm-tossed path, challenging though it always is, the journey wouldn't be half
as interesting and really I wouldn't have it any other way.

My forthcoming exhibition at the Minster Gallery in Winchester is entitled ‘Elemental’. This will be my second solo show there and I am
delighted to have been asked back again.

The exhibition runs from 19th May – 12th June with a Private View on Friday 19th May, 12.00 noon – 3.00pm and 6.00pm – 8.30pm.
All are welcome.

The Minster Gallery is situated in the heart of Winchester, Hampshire, a five minute walk from the train station and easily found off the
Square facing the main entrance of the Cathedral on Great Minster Street. It is open from 10 – 5 pm Monday to Saturday or otherwise
by appointment.

The Minster Gallery 3a Great Minster Street Winchester Hants SO23 9HA Tel: 01962 877601 www.minstergallery.com

Psalm & Alabaster 100cm x 120cm Oil on Canvas

Nocturne 100cm x 120cm Oil on Canvas

This Sweet & Tender Light (triptych) 16cm x 48cm Oil on Board

Scattering Sky 30cm x 30cm Oil on Board

Journeying 30cm x 30cm Oil on Board

A River of Prayers under an Indigo Sky (diptych) 50cm x 100cm Oil on Board

Mercury & Silver 30cm x 30cm Oil on Board

Palimpsest 100cm x 120cm Oil on Canvas

Drifting on an Empty Sea 30cm x 35cm Oil on Board

Weathervane (diptych) 50cm x 100cm Oil on Board

I Found a Thread and then I Let it Go 50cm x 110cm Oil on Canvas

Spindrift 100cm x 120cm Oil on Canvas

Veering South and Losing Identity 20cm x 23cm Oil on Board

I Thought I Heard a Fisherman’s Song 100cm x 120cm Oil on Canvas

Unstitching the Stars 80cm x 90cm Oil on Canvas

Landskein 100cm x 100cm Oil on Canvas

Celeste & Pirr 25cm x 60cm Oil on Board

Stormtossed (triptych) 16cm x 48cm Oil on Board

Evening Star 40cm x 45cm Oil on Board

Another Slight Murmur in the Hedgerow (triptych) 30cm x 90cm Oil on Board

Dragonflies & Blue Skies 30cm x 30cm Oil on Board

No One but Thee 80cm x 90cm Oil on Canvas

When you sing at my window You have not come for three days now
in this moment your song is for me alone. and I have missed your song
thought you gone
It is not only good fortune that but your voice can not be possessed
brings me here to listen, just as my restless silence walks unbowed,
but more than that; stalking the walls of a too well guarded joy,
the dreams of alchemists at play, waiting always waiting,
matured in a cask of a vast black sky never quite finding a way in.
along some distant astral plane
and dropped at last by chance to And just when I am abandoned
land in the lap of this good morning. you counter with the beauty
of your endless and rarest grace,
If I do not answer your ululations lay your song at my pillow once again
know that in my silence before flying off to another who thinks you theirs,
I am still learning the shape of the universe to one more holy land,
and that one day I will return here another undiscovered country.
with a suitcase of lost paths found
and a calligraphy set, How do you remember so many songs I ask,
write these words on passing clouds but my voice is lost on the wind,
to fall as rain on your unruffled feathers. the last remaining words still in captivity, set free.

Why not now you say, why wait to proclaim
the first light on the hills,
or the last in the depths of the wood?
I can not answer with the clarity
of this bright new day,
only fashion a rough hewn
palette of gestures and mimes
for you to unravel with patience and time.

Out of Dark Valleys 30cm x 35cm Oil on Board