Peter Joyce – May 2017
‘Exhibition explores the force and fragility of the land’
Reclaimed, 2016, acrylic on canvas, 90 x 98cm, £9,000
The force and fragility of the land is explored in Peter Joyce’s latest exhibition, Marks of Passage, to
be held at Gallery 8, Duke Street, St James’s, London, SW1Y 6BN from 2 - 6 May 2017 by Jenna
Burlingham Fine Art.
Joyce is a British painter who is currently living and working in the marshland of remote western
France. Peter has a long established reputation among Modern British artists and is considered a key
figure by collectors, advisors, curators and decorators. With a successful career spanning twenty-
five years, his work is exhibited at the major London art fairs and held in private and public
collections internationally.
According to Jenna, Joyce’s main representative; “There is so much to look at and appreciate in
Peter’s paintings. They can be viewed on a visual level as beautifully balanced compositions of form,
texture and colour. But this would miss out on the serious intent and deep thought that goes into
his work, as well as his understanding of his own relationship with the landscape with all its force
Sea Air, 2016, acrylic on canvas laid onto wood panel, 92 x 82 cm, £8,500
In recent years, Joyce has mostly lived and worked in La Vendee in western France, a flat landscape
reclaimed from the sea, with marshy fields interlaced with canals, dykes and creeks. Throughout the
landscape can be seen relics of the once important salt harvesting industry giving it a feeling of
abandonment, as well as being home to a wide variety of wildlife and migrating birds.
Turned Back, 2016, acrylic and collage on canvas laid on to wood panel, 28 x 61cm, £3,300
Joyce is a man of passionate interests, chief among them a longstanding fascination with wildlife. In
this La vendee is especially rich, and amongst its animal population are hares, rabbits, muskrats,
coypus, small lizards, snakes and eels. There is also an abundant birdlife including harriers, short-
eared owls, redshanks, lapwings, egrets and herons. His studio in a former oyster factory is only 5
metres from the beach.
According to leading art critic, Ian Massey, Joyce’s paintings “communicate to us in their own
essentially abstract, elusive language. Yet their power is simultaneously in what they evoke in
elemental nature. And in this, each mark and gesture, each shift of directional emphasis, is in its way
equivalent to the movement of the human body and its physical and sensory immersion in the
landscape.”
Peter outside his studio
Peter’s collection of studio pottery
Forty-two paintings reveal Joyce’s continued study of the salt pan area. His work is informed by daily
walks in the physical environment, noting the landscape and atmospheric conditions and occasionally
he will alight on something that might trigger an idea from which to start a new picture. It might be
as simple as a piece of red thread caught on a wire fence. Painting in acrylics, layering through collage
and then scraping away, he also uses pieces of canvas and hessian in his work which sometimes
remain evident in the final work and are sometimes submerged within the painting.
Nets at La Louippe
Joyce has had a lifelong fascination with wildlife
During his daily walks, Peter regularly comes across visual cues which form into paintings
The body of work as a whole documents the area and titles can evoke a sense of time: Autumn
Lagoon, Printemps and sunset to name just a few, but the majority reference the man altered
landscape or the place that initially sparked the painting: Enclosure, Lost Pond, Blue Field or Red
Joyce has a distinctive style, his paintings are created layer by layer and the surface, like the
landscape itself, is worked and re-worked. Drawing, painting and compositional changes are
endlessly made creating complicated yet enchanting surfaces. Each layer is changed and often
removed as if by erosion, mimicking the landscape itself. The process continues until the painting
reminds him of the place and the place reminds him of the painting.
Notes to Editors
Please click the following link, or cut and paste it into your browser, to view or download images of
the paintings in the exhibition:
http://privateview.net/2/11b51963550cd978dcdb33/
Exhibition dates:
Private view and press viewing – Tuesday 2 May 2pm – 9pm
Wednesday 3 May to Saturday 6 May 2017
Location:
Gallery 8
8 Duke Street St James’s
London
SW1Y 6BN
Public opening hours:
Wednesday May 3, 10am – 6pm
Thursday May 4, 10am – 6pm
Friday May 5, 10am – 6pm
Saturday May 6, 10am – 4pm
Jenna Burlingham Fine Art:
Jenna Burlingham Fine Art, Peter Joyce’s main representative, specialises in Modern British paintings, prints,
ceramics and sculpture, as well as work by selected contemporary artists. Jenna has over twenty years’
experience in the art world, having worked in an auction house and then an art dealership in London prior to
opening her own gallery in 2010.
Peter Joyce:
Peter Joyce was born in 1964 in Poole, Dorset, and was educated at Bournemouth & Poole College of Art &
Design from 1980. Joyce went on to study at Stourbridge College of Art & Technology and qualified with a
Diploma in General Art & Design and a BA (Hons) in Fine Art.
Joyce has taught at the Bournemouth Arts Institute since graduating with the position of chairman of ‘Room 10
Painting Group’ and president of Bournemouth Arts Club. He exhibits regularly throughout the UK and his
work is held in several corporate collections including Lloyds/TSB, National Westminster Bank, Reuters,
Binder Hamlyn, Bank of china, Hill Samuel, Cleveland County Fine Art Collection, Russell Cotes Museum and
Art Gallery, Poole Museum and Hampshire County Council.
For further information, please contact:
Jenna Burlingham Fine Art
2a George Street
Kingsclere
Newbury
RG20 5NQ
01635 298855
info@jennaburlingham.com
www.jennaburlingham.com