Press Release

Objects of Light

For 50,000 years or more, women worked together in fire lit caves, making pots and paintings. A

new Exhibition in Ely throws a contemporary light on the interplay between the two arts.

Mary Romer first encountered Angela Mellor's glowing white porcelain on a dark winter's

afternoon in Ely. The array of white bowls impressed with marine motifs - seaweed, sand rippled

by tide, ancient rocks, brought back memories of a childhood spent on the shores of the Indian

Ocean. With a small collection of Mellor's pieces installed on her shelves, it was inevitable that

ceramic bowls would slip discreetly into Romer's oil paintings.

The vessels became a metaphor for thoughts and experiences distilled in memory. In the small

intimate paintings featured in this exhibition, in which one form plays against another, the painter

captures these tranquil moments of domestic life, when harmony prevails. Angular shapes,

suggesting the elements of a traditional still life - bowls, jugs, platters, here become contemporary

symbols of 'hearth and home'.

Some of the details and colours in these works are Romer's response to Italian Renaissance

frescos. In Fra Angelico's 'Annunciation' there appears a small urn with white lilies, set between

the angel Gabriel and the Virgin Mary, In the buildings painted by Masaccio, there are baskets of

bread on window sills, terracotta flowerpots, linen hanging out and perhaps a cat curled asleep,

providing a homely counterpart to the portrayals of St. Peter and the disciples below. These

small and seemingly insignificant details give expressions to the intimacy shared by human

beings within their homes and everyday lives.

The painter has enriched this distillation of everyday life with a warm colour palette, echoing the

past, while neatly complementing the cool translucent ceramics, created by Mellor.

'Objects of Light'

Exhibition at

Angela Mellor Gallery

38a St Mary's Street, Ely, Cambridgeshire CB7 4ES

Open Weekends: 30Nov/1Dec, 7Dec/8Dec, 14Dec/15Dec

10.30 - 5pm

Telephone: 01353 666675

www.angelamellor.com

www.maryromer.com

Mary Romer, 'Small Vessel', Oil on canvas, 40 x 40cm