‘Coquet River School: An Introduction’ is an essay detailing a group of painters I am involved in. The writing below covers how the group came to be, our activities, shared interests and intentions.
For several months now I have been taking part in a group consisting of Myself, Katherine Renton and Paul Henery. Our grouping began out of my mutual friendship with both of them, I suggested one day that the three of us meet up for a painting trip. Out of that initial meeting evolved what we have come to refer to as the Coquet River School. The notion of us being a group came out of the initial quip that we were the ‘Amble School’ of painters, with each of us being from or residing in the town. The idea of referring to ourselves as the Amble School was settled on for a while, however we eventually agreed that a wider area was perhaps more reflective of our broad painting interests. We also came to feel that an Amble School might exist already, beyond simply the 3 of us, to all of the artists working in the area. The town is beginning to become a real hub for the creative arts, with numerous artists being based in it or nearby. The Dry Water Arts Centre has become increasingly established over the past few years and with the ‘Bord Waalk’ Sculpture Trail nearing its launch, this trend looks set to carry on.
Coquet River School was my play on the name of the famous American painting movement, the Hudson River School. A prominent Mid-19th Century Movement of painters influenced by Romantacism, whom painted the landscape in and around the Hudson River Valley. Whilst our manners of working and approaches are somewhat different to those of Bierstadt, Church and Cole we felt that it was an appropriately fitting name that we could all abide by.
Since our initial gathering, we began to meet monthly. Our meetings are centered around our group crits, we each spend around 30 minutes discussing a few pieces of recent work, their virtues, shortcomings and potentiality for further development. We all agreed at the outset of the group that there would be little point to engaging with each other in this fashion were we not to all give each other good spirited but honest criticism. This dialogue is perhaps the most appealing and useful part of working together. It is necessary when painting to be alone for periods of time, either when thinking and developing ideas, or when actually working. But it is also equally necessary for the painter to discuss what it is they are engaged in with those who have a first-hand understanding of the discipline.
For those unfamilar with him and his work, Paul is a Wildlife Artist, something of a peculiarity in painting, or at least in Britain. Wildlife art evokes ideas of the kitsch, of animal portraiture, zebras, lions and giraffes. Whilst he has spent time in Africa encountering these creatures first hand, Paul is typically focused on the wildlife of the area. His paintings are not idealised visions of nature, but representations of everyday encounters with it. Crucial is the term encounter, for he recognises that the interactions with wildlife are two-sided, between the observer and the animal being observed. Through the process of painting, working between sketching in the field and developing ideas in the studio, he portrays his relationship to the natural world. Having worked as a Wildlife Crime Officer and as a Volunteer Warden on Coquet Island, he understands the impact of this relationship becoming unbalanced. This line of thinking is related to some of his more recent work that focuses on climate change, and that carries an environmentalist message.
The subject of Katherine’s work lies dotted along the Northumberland Coast. She has grown to local prominence for her methodical renditions of structures associated with the ever-changing coastline of the county. From the cold, unmoving walls of Craster Harbour to the sweeping lines of the Dune Walkway onto Alnmouth Beach, Katherine considers our relationship with the sea and the various ways that we seek to control it. One of her more eclectic bodies of work is a series of paintings of found sandcastles, in her view the ‘ultimate form of public art’. Up until recently she worked predominantly in Oil paint and in Watercolours, in the instances of both mediums, pushing them beyond their conventional boundaries of usage. However, in her recent work she has turned to making her own paint. Not from ready bought pigment, but instead by grinding down various minerals she has scavenged from the places that she paints. The resulting earth tones, give her paintings a new context, images of place rendered with the substance of the place itself. This new and evolving way of working opens up pressing questions about place, material and environment.
Each of us had work featured in the recent Woodhorn Open Exhibition, Paul has just had a Solo show at Gallagher and Turner in Newcastle and both I and Katherine have upcoming solo exhibitions at the Bailiffgate Museum and Gallery in Alnwick over the next year. This is an exciting time for the arts and artists in the area and we hope that by working together we can further our own ambitions and collective interests. We eventually hope to have a group show of our work that will draw on the narrative and conversations emerging from our working together.
You can view more of Katherine’s work on her website via the link below, where you can also find her social media links: https://www.katherine-renton.co.uk/
You can see Paul’s most recent work on his Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/paulwjhenery/?hl=en
Copyright: The rights of all images included in the above article reside with the original author and their usage here indicates in no way whatsoever an intent to claim them as otherwise.
Header Image Credits (L-R): Image 1: Luxe Magazine, Image 2&3: Jim Donnelly
Luke McTaggart 