Mel Reese

"Snow Blanket", contemporary abstract winter landscape, spray & crayon on paper

2017

An acrylic, caran d'ache, and spray paint abstract drawing of that moment in winter when the air becomes so bitter cold that it almost seems to freeze around you. This drawing was p...

An acrylic and caran d'ache abstract drawing of the moment in the season when it is so crips and quiet that your shoes make clear tracks frozen in the snow. This drawing was produce...

An acrylic and caran d'ache abstract drawing of that special, soft purple light that shimmers on the snow at sunset in winter. This drawing was produced during my November 2017 resi...

An acrylic and spray paint abstract drawing of the Gihon River in Johnson, Vermont. This drawing was produced during my November 2017 residency at Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, ...

An acrylic and spray paint abstract drawing of the dying wheat plains throughout the rural region of Johnson, Vermont. This drawing was produced during my ...

An acrylic and spray paint abstract drawing of dancing cattails along the frozen Gihon River bank of Johnson, Vermont. This drawing was produced during my November 2017 residency at...

Katerina-Papazissi The Fall, 2016 Pasel on paper Her work constructs a universe where the body and nature, as well as inner reality, an inexplicable, overwhelming, material but...

Abstract Colorado mountain landscape by Eric James Bransby (1916-2020). Pastel on paper in colors of green, orange, blue, and purple. Presented in a custom frame with archival materi...

Abstracted Bay Area skyline against a pink sunset creates beautiful and soft geometries in this small pastel urban landscape by San Francisco artist Chris Cacciotti (American, 20th C...

Elaine Kaufman Feiner (1922-2018) "Hawaii II" 1993 Oil pastel, paint on paper 30"x40" unframed Signed and dated in pencil lower right, signed, titled and dated on reverse

Roger Cecil. Welsh ( b.1942 - d.2015 ). Llangorse, Brecon Beacons Watercolor and pastel on paper. Signed. Image size 19.5 inches x 29.5 inches ( 49.5cm x 75cm ). Frame size 24.6 inches x 34.6 inches ( 62.5cm x 88cm ). Available for sale; this original painting is by the Welsh artist Roger Cecil and dates from around 1964. The watercolor and pastel work is presented and supplied in a sympathetic contemporary frame (our stock frame, which is shown in these photographs), mounted using conservation materials and behind glass. The original backboard has been reused but the artwork has been isolated from it using conservation barrier materials. This vintage artwork is in good condition, commensurate with its age. Previous cockling (rippling) of the paper has been eliminated by stretching and the use of a new mounting. Previous foxing and age marks have been mechanically removed and the coarse fiber of the paper has been made good in these areas. The painting is now ready to hang and display. The watercolor is signed lower left. Provenance: Previously with the Howard Roberts Gallery, Imperial Buildings, 69/74 St Mary Street, Cardiff. Roger Cecil was a reclusive painter, draughtsman and teacher who was born in Abertillery, Monmouthshire in 1942. He lived and worked in Wales for the last four decades of his life, much of it in the house where he was born and brought up. Cecil produced abstract work rich in imagery, poetry and color, which were drawn from his environment, the industrial valley towns and mountains. Prolific and obsessive, he was always a solitary artist, with no affiliations to any group or artistic movement. He worked for more than forty years, with an ever evolving and prolific creative output. His pictures capture the geology and the history of the places he knew so intimately, and the impact of man of that environment. Cecil studied Fine Art at Newport College of Art from 1959 to 1963, where his teachers included John Wright and Thomas Rathmell; in 1963 he gained the College’s highest award in the national diploma in design and a place at the Royal College London. In 1964 he won the David Murray Landscape Award from the RA. He took up his place at the Royal College of Art, but after just a few weeks he was unsatisfied and instead took up manual work in opencast mines and building sites. Cecil later spent some time teaching at Ebbw Vale. From 1995 to 1998 he did his MA, which he gained with distinction in communication design at St. Martin’s College of Art. The BBC made a television documentary on Cecil's work called The Gentle Rebel. For a long time Cecil did not exhibit, through choice, and it was friends who helped to promote him. He then had a series of exhibitions at Business Art Galleries from 1987, and in 1995 the Hill Court Gallery, Abergavenny, held a retrospective of his work. In 1998 Gordon Hepworth and Y Tabernacl both showed Cecil's pictures. Cecil’s works were also shown at the Oriel Myrddin Gallery in 2006 and 20011. The small book which takes the name of the earlier exhibition ”Cariad”; has an introduction by gallery manager Meg Anthony which states; “The magic of Roger Cecil’s work is in part down to the man, for he is enigmatic and surprising, diffident and proud. He has deliberately avoided the art establishment, remaining shy of its protocol and systems of exposure and recognition. He has consciously created the space to pursue his art, away from the pressures of publicity and celebrity...... paint is Roger’s passion.” Cecil’s methods were complex; he worked with a mixture of materials, including oil pastels, sandpaper, primer and plaster. He built up layers and then he rubbed and scratched them away. His work is textured and nuanced, and the color reverberates as if it has a life of its own. The paintings are abstract, but there are echoes of monumental shapes and undulations of the female form, the Valleys - the dark hills embracing the bowls of space and the rich, gritty textures of the industrial and post-industrial landscape, highlighted by intricate, personal marks. Sarah Bradford states: “Scale is an important feature of Roger Cecil’s work; he constantly shifts from near and the far off. He also moves his viewpoint from looking at, to looking down on to. This looking down, as though a bird, onto the world of the painting, comes from exploration of his surroundings and from the ordinance survey maps he takes with him when he walks. He has often said how he is inspired by the language of symbols and lines that are used in maps to delineate the landscape. It is easy to see the connection when looking at the networks of invented footpaths, waterways, and other pinpoint features that can be found in his work.” … Mary Lloyd...

Gouache and watercolor on paper painting, painted in 1948 by Mary Chenoweth (1918-1999). Signed and dated by the artist in the lower right corner. Depicting an abstracted landscape o...