ABOUT me
Exhibition at Chapel House, Penzance. Autumn 2022.
I love the wild places. Looking out to sea, I become absorbed in the relentless noise of surf, wind and rain, the tumultuous howl becoming an overwhelming physical sensation. The very life-force generated by the seaboard experienced when you stand and face it - eyes closed and breathing in - leads me to draw and paint what it is to be there. Recently, the North Norfolk coast has revealed a new landscape to me – icy winds from the north, light often coming from land behind, long marshes and sandbanks before the sea line, casting clouds in unusual light and allowing large skies to dominate the flatlands. The power of this geography is revealed through the motion of the wind, twisting and buckling, in the eddies of dykes and rivers along the Blakeney Stretches.
My affinity with the tactility of materials leads me to use an alchemy of concoctions and potions (created from a wide variety of pigments, paints, and glazes) and apply them to prepared, often patinated surfaces, embracing the subtle liquidity of paint whilst incorporating textural elements. I work in series, mostly in the studio from studies, photographs or films taken in the wild. The final pieces sometimes develop a sense of antiquity or history, as though they have come from another era evoking landscape painters of the past.
In the Autumn I begin a new project, collaborating with the poet Martin Malone, working in response to the wide vistas of southern England, along The Ridgeway.
Experience
Rebecca Spicer (b 1963, UK)
Education:
Newlyn School of Art: Studio Practice and Mentoring Programme
Oxford Brookes: Drawing for Fine Art Practice MA
Bath Spa University: Art and Design PGCE
Cambridge College of Art (now Anglia Ruskin University): Geography and Study of Art BA (Joint Hons)
Exhibitions:
2015 Past Present Future. 20th Century, Theatre Notting Hill, London
2016 ASPECT : Lines of Perception. West Ox Art Gallery, Bampton, Oxfordshire
2017 Mount House, Marlborough, Wiltshire
2017 PerceivedPlaces, The Studio, Mildenhall, Wiltshire
2017 The Past is Another Country, John Bowen Gallery, Malmesbury
2017 Before and After Lines, The Jam Factory, Oxford
2018 Also Here, The Studio, Mildenhall, Wiltshire
2018 A Sense of Place, The Mall Galleries London
2018 Brewing Dolphin Exhibition, Marlborough, Wiltshire
2019 Face (MOS) The Studio, Mildenhall, Wiltshire
2019 Brewin Dolphin Exhibiiton, Marlborough, Wiltshire
2020 Artist Support Pledge
2021 Waterlilies (MOS) The Studio, Mildenhall, Wiltshire
2021 Presence of Absence, The Mall Galleries
2021 Horizon, (MOS) the Studio, Mildenhall, Wiltshire
2022 Tremenheere Gallery and Sculpture Gardens, Penzance
2022 Chapel House, Penzance
2023 Wild Earth, Tremenheere Gallery and Sculpture Gardens, Penzance
2023 Art in the Garden, The Manor, Ramsbury, Wiltshire
2023 Blakeney Point - Looking North, (MOS) the Studio, Mildenhall, Wiltshire
Private Collections in London, Wiltshire and Singapore
Residencies:
2024 Quattro Archi, Barga, Italy (Sept-Oct)
Teaching:
2000-2017 Director and Teacher of Art, St Mary’s School, Calne
1999-2000 Teacher of Painting Wiltshire College
1998-1999 Head of Art Warminster Junior School
Curating:
2023 Curator Blakeney Point - Looking North (MOS)
2022 Curator (MOS) Horizon
2021 Curator (MOS) Waterlilies
2018 Curator MOS Group Show, Mount House, Marlbrough
2017 Curator of Perceived Places
2015 Curator of Past, Present Future (20th Century, Theatre Notting Hill, London)
2012 Curator of Consider the Lilies (Cork Street, London)
1990 Ivor Abrahams RA, Bernard Jacobson Gallery, London
1987-1990 Curator Saatchi Collection, Boundary Road - Exhibitions including Anselm Kiefer and Richard Serra, New British Artists, New York Art Now
Books and Catalogues:
NY Art Now, Giancarlo Politics Editors and The Saatchi Collection, Dan Cameron 1987
New British Art in the Saatchi Collection, Thames and Hudson, Alistair Hicks, 1989
Consider the Lilies Catalogue 2012
Past, Present, Future Catalogue 2015
my studio
