To see more information about this exhibition, click here

Petleys is proud to invite you to an exhibition of paintings from the artists studio which will be a taste of forthcoming exhibitions.

Leafing through our catalogue, you will see recent works by Edward Beale, Colin Fraser, Yuri Krotov, Peter Kuhfeld, Roy Petley, Vicente Romero, Igor Shipilin and Martin Yeoman.  
We see views of the Thames by Edward Beale – he has most recently been painting from the Old Battersea Firestation and amongst his works can be seen views of the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben. Amongst this collection of his works are works from the South of France and London.

With Colin Fraser we have his intriguing interiors where we can see the subtle play of light and shade and how it interacts with a myriad of objects, living, stone, glass, material and flowers.

Yuri has just arrived with all his new work for his exhibition in October. Views of children enjoying their holidays, summer lunches, light and shade (his passion!) and beautiful young ladies instil us with a sense of good feeling and optimism for the Summer.
We have a soupcon of masterly interiors by Peter Kuhfeld:, nudes and form executed in his studio with the reflections of light between different angles of mirrors leave us with a sense of wonder.

Roy Petley continues to delight us with his most impassioned inspirational subjects, new works from his favourite painting spots in Paris, Venice and the Dordogne. Dappled light, bustling summer sun and good feeling flow from his paintings directly to our souls, filling us and enveloping us in a sense of warm euphoria.
Vicente Romero continues to impress us with his sense of light and colour in his pastels, with a depth of detail that is not immediately apparent to the eye we see forms and figures, almost in an ethereal light that make us want to step into the vibrant works end enjoy the way of life ourselves.

The uniquely painted and textured works of Igor Shipilin create a sense of difference to the eye, with two new works of the Russian countryside in summer.

Martin Yeoman continues to inspire us, with his masterly draughtsmanship, gentle lines and soft colours we are caressed into his paintings to appreciate the magnificence of his works. Hazy views of landscapes, still life’s, seascapes with figures these paintings move all of us.

We hope that you manage to come and enjoy a glass of champagne as you will need to see these paintings because they are so much more than our catalogue can portray. The exhibition will contain around 60 works.

Petleys.

 

Summer is here! Some of you may say that Summer has been here for some time, but we would have to disagree... It has been decidedly chilly for the most part, baring four weeks of sunny bliss.

Traditionally August is a refurbishing month for us at Petleys, a time to repaint and have a fresh outlook and start for the Autumn - to get out and have a bit of a holiday and get a suntan. As such we want to let you know that our opening hours are going to change for July and August.

From the 24th of July (Friday) to the 29th of August, we will open on Saturdays only by appointment.

From the 1st to the 16th of August we will be making the gallery ship shape for the Autumn. However, we may be able to open by appointment.

If you would like to arrange an appointment to view, you can do so at any time by ringing the gallery number: 020 7494 2021.

Regards,

Roy and Jason

To see more information about this exhibition, click here

Petleys is proud to invite you to our annual Exhibition of Drawings. This year we have combined new and old, with works by Paul Bartlett, Edward Beale, Francesco-Guiseppe Casanova, Marc Chagall, Saied Dai, Paul Ceasar Helleu, Bob Jackson, Augustus John, Peter Kuhfeld, Henri Lebasque, Henri Matisse, Ambrose McEvoy, Sir William Orpen, Roy Petley, Pablo Picasso, Vicente Romero, Charlotte Sorapure, Edward Stotts, Caspar Pieter Verbruggen, Lucy Kemp Welch, Antony Williams, Robbie Wraith, Martin Yeoman.

In the world of Art today there is so much confusion as to what is Art. For instance, drawing to some has been redefined as mark making. To me this is far too crude an expression to describe something that not only involves the total coordination of your eye, mind and hand but also all your feelings about what is in front of you and indeed around you at a specific point in time. Mark making by contrast is the difference between signing your name and taking a thumb print. What sparks people off into drawing? In my own case I remember really enjoying it from the age of five. The desire grew inside me I think and later, by looking at books that had great drawings in them, with one book in particular on Rembrandt that fully opened my aspirations. Within that book, it had the all-time great drawing of ‘Two women teaching a child to walk’ which was probably made in under a minute.

What an example! Maybe though it would mean nothing to you if you have no feeling for it. Those of us who wanted to draw when we were children would come back to a drawing such as this and sit and wonder at how someone had managed to capture something so fleeting and convey such life. In my middle years I am still in the same state of wonder at that drawing and so many others, and will be till the day I die. So if you are young or if you are old and have been reading this, stop now and sit for a very long time and look at Rembrandt’s great drawing reproduced opposite.

Then come and see the exhibition and enjoy the works of acknowledged Masters in drawing from the 19th and 20th century alongside people who draw today. Make your own mind up on how far, or even how not so far, we have got with this great and strangely undervalued art.

by Martin Yeoman

 

To see more information about this exhibition, click here

Petleys is proud to invite you to Edward Beale's one-man exhibition.

Edward Beale is an artist of passion, his gusto and sense of surrounding give his work an immediacy which threatens to wash over you and sweep you away in enthusiasm for his thickly layed impasto.

His expressive depth and colour bring out a beguiling freshness his views of France, London and Scotland.

The collection of paintings that make up Edward Beale’s exhibition is like a diary of months spent working from a roof overlooking the Thamesat Lambeth Reach as well as travelling to the Hebrides, Derbyshire, Provence, Catalonia and the Dordogne. Each location has particularcharacteristics which help or hinder but always affect his manner of working the paint. The roof offered a vantage point within a few streets ofthe artist’s studio yet revealed new panoramas over the Thames and the city beyond. The few days of heavy snow in January gave a rareopportunity for painting in a blizzard. Edward found that the paint tended to become powdery and crystalline and difficult to manipulate withoutadding more linseed oil to maintain its fluidity. He found he could use the dry, raw appearance of the paint that the conditions had created.

The Hebrides present special challenges for painting outside. Conditions are rarely perfect. Most often the practical difficulty must be overcomeof preventing the easel from blowing over in winds that come straight off the Atlantic. Rain can be constant, or perhaps more infuriating and intermittent. A painting begun in bright sunshine might end in a squall. Even a little sunshine in this terrain intensifies the colours to great brilliance and this can be seen in Edward’s paintings of Coll Beach and the mountains of Harris.

The mountains of the Pyrenees provide a dynamic subject. They can be seen in many of Edward’s Catalonian paintings. The terracotta clay soil, palms and cacti, together with the strong light, make exotic contrasts in this work.

While in the greener region of the Dordogne he visited the medieval town of St Emilion in the heart of the wine growing area. Its parchment coloured stone buildings now accommodate a modern way of life, but to draw them triggers the imagination and a sense of its history. At the top of the steep streets from the old town walls the countryside spreads out in tidy ranks of vines. Tractors, as narrow as they are tall, move along the rows tending the crops.

Several places around the perimeter of St Emilion give an unimpeded view of the town with its distinctive spire rising between the vine covered slopes. The place from which Edward works must have a space for a vehicle, be away from busy roads and have shade to prevent the sun shining directly onto the painting. He found a place at the edge of a vineyard where recent rain had made the fertile soil into a glutinous mud.

The warm May afternoon was perfect for landscape painting. Clouds gathered over the town which was now a series of small shapes along the horizon. It nestled in the landscape. The task was to make these shapes significant enough to read as St Emilion and to show how the fields fell away into the distance and how the sky had become the most dramatic part of the view. Light changing constantly from strong and crisp, subdued and soft, to dark and dramatic presents a quandary which forces the painter to make decisions about what to leave out rather than attempting to put everything in. It is about trying different marks to suggest in two dimensions equivalents for a three dimensional world in order to accomplish an accurate rendering of what he observes and experiences.

Edward’s method of working involves a lot of paint applied in a robust vigorous way. A small aluminium table serves as a palette with tins of paint lined up along the back. Bigger tins of white are placed nearby on the ground. The board has been prepared with wooden battening around the edges on the back to enable the finished painting to be handled and then hung on a wall to dry. The front surface is covered with an offwhite emulsion ground. Just before he begins he covers the surface in linseed oil to make sure the paint stays wet as he works. He chooses the shape and size of the board and then quickly decides on the composition which is sketched in brisk movements using blue or crimson paint.

Working with large brushes he paints wet into wet. With sustained and intense concentration he orchestrates planes, edges, form, tone and colour in a way which owes nothing to photography and everything to observation.

‘It’s about the feel of the day,’ he says.

Edward sets out to keep faith with the medium, by not trying to disguise the painting process. He has this to say about the special paint he uses:

‘The things I first liked about this paint were its malleable viscosity and how well it lent itself to impasto painting. The paint is best used boldly. I use heavily loaded brushes to add an element of unpredictability which I like to exploit. I aim for a sense of energy within a painting. The density of the colours and sensuousness of the paint on the brush are other important qualities. It dries with a sheen that I like very much. Its sheer abundance is liberating. I enjoy being able to use paint in such large quantities.

I was first told about the paint in 1968 at Camberwell School of Art by tutors who were already using it. It was recommended to me because of its high quality and reasonable price. The twenty-eight pound kegs (now five litres) of paint were a revelation to me. I would order several tins at a time. I always felt a thrill of excitement to see them arrive by lorry all the way from Sheffield. I continued to use the paint through my years as a student at the Royal Academy and have been using it more or less ever since those days.’

Claire Edwards, MA, (Phil) July 2009

 

I just wanted to leave a note letting everyone know that we are changing our telephone system over the next few days - you may not be able to get through to us on our normal number (020 7494 2021), however you can still reach us on 079 7478 6616.

Jason Petley 

 

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More information about the Spring Exhibition

Roy and Jason Petley would like to invite you to our

Spring Exhibition

With over 60 paintings from our gallery artists.

From the 10th of February to the 12th of March, 2010

All works are for sale.

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More information about the Winter Exhibition

Roy and Jason Petley have great pleasure in presenting to you our

Winter Exhibition

Focusing on starting a collection, we hope that you will come and enjoy a glass of champagne with us and appreciate the works of what we believe are some of Europe’s finest artists.

 

Colin Fraser is known to us for his serene, sensitive and intensely atmospheric still lives and interiors.

The key to Colin Fraser's work is light, notably sunlight and the absence of it - one could almost say that Colin Fraser is fascinated by it - by the way that the shadows fall and the moods that it creates. The light that he depicts has as much of a presence as his meticulously detailed subject matter.

"Glowing from within" is the only term sufficient to describe the high degree of luminosity and light sensitivity of Colin Fraser's work  "Higher Ground". Having the effect of true light coming to us from a vibrant landscape -  we find ourselves looking through the window expecting to feel sunlight on our faces.

We have several works by Colin Fraser on view in the gallery, of which "Higher Ground" is one. To arrange a viewing, call us on 020 7494 2021.

 

Click here to read more about Colin Fraser on our website.