Living with Art

18.9.24
Howard Hodgkin Studio Visit

One of the highlights of this year’s Open House Festival was our visit to the studio of Howard Hodgkin. Although he sadly passed away in 2017, his Estate has opened up the intimate setting of his studio to the public to keep his legacy alive. Hodgkin is considered one of the most important British post-war abstract artists. The titles to his works are allusive and suggestive, setting the scene for the viewer to bring their imagination to complete the visual storytelling of each picture. Each work, though abstract, evokes emotions and distils essences of memories through vibrant and vivid colours that immediately speak to you.

The light-filled studio is in the heart of central London and was previously a dairy in the nineteenth century and then Lord Snowden’s studio for making motors for Chairmobiles wheelchairs. For over thirty years, Hodgkin worked here on his paintings – some of which could take up to eight years to create.

Paintbrushes and a paint-spattered floor evoked the feeling of the artist at work. Elegant sofas – including a circular borne settee – and chairs that would have been used by the artist helped to create an authentic experience. These were upholstered with beautiful flower patterns the Hodgkin created for the Designers Guild in 1986.

A wide range of prints and paintings were hung, showing the close relationship between his paintings and prints – and just how painterly his prints can be with their hand-colouring. One of our favourites was the large-scale hand-coloured intaglio print Night Palm (1991). Hodgkin’s time travelling in Morocco had a profound impact on him leading him to revisit the motif of the palm tree in further work. The motif was also partly inspired by his time in Paris where he would see vivid travel posters in the metro in the 1950-60s.

The Howard Hodgkin Legacy Trust have plans to extend the artists reach around the globe, aiming to collaborate with existing institutions on converting the artist’s studio into a museum.

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With far reaching views over Mounts Bay and St Michael’s Mount and only two miles from the bustling town and port of Penzance, Tremenheere Sculpture Garden is a graceful sanctuary, combining restorative gardening with art.

The dramatic and beautiful landscape is the perfect setting for a large-scale exotic, sub-tropical garden built from scratch twenty-five years ago, which in turn houses some of the finest sculpture by internationally renowned artists. This combination brings to the fore the important role the landscape plays for sculptors and artists and viewing artwork here is both contemplative and inspiring.

The creations and site-specific works of artists such as James Turrell, David Nash, Richard Long, Tim Shaw and Peter Randall-Page harmonise perfectly with the landscape and intertwine with an evolving programme of contemporary artwork.

Tremenheere Gallery is one of the largest purpose-built art spaces in the county and has proved to be a welcome addition to the Cornish gallery scene, providing a forum for a range of local, national and international artists to be seen. Work inspired by a journey through the sculpture garden, and the connection artists have felt to the magic of the landscape, is regularly featured in the exhibitions. Since its opening in 2017, Tremenheere Gallery has hosted shows by artists including Gillian Ayres, Rose Hilton, Stephen Chambers, Jeremy Le Grice, Romi Behrens and Jessica Cooper.

Tremenheere Sculpture Garden
& Gallery

‘Numerous artists have felt the power and energy of the garden, and created sculptures that now permanently live at Tremenheere. The works of art do not compete for attention or glory in this natural place, they harmoniously coexist with a sense of acceptance, surrender and inevitability. There is also a forum here for fluid or temporary art, always kept in balance with the Cornish landscape, and as ever, with an eye on quality and symbiosis’.

James Turrell, Tewlwolow Kernow. 2015.

Richard Long, Granite & Rabbits, 2024.

Lisa Wright, Daphne, 2019.

Tom Leaper, Agent Orange, 2019.

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1.8.25
Stephen Chambers Studio Visit

The first time we saw a print by Stephen Chambers, it felt like we had stepped into an exciting, lyrical world. Chambers, a celebrated contemporary British artist and Royal Academician (b. 1960) has long balanced his prolific painting practice with a deep, inventive engagement with printmaking. His prints are not mere reproductions of his paintings—they are unique, self-contained worlds of their own. We had the pleasure of exploring his works in more depth with a trip to his London studio, a workshop full of creative spark. Canvases leaning against the wall, brushes still drying and a host of beautiful prints to explore.

Chambers embraces ambiguity and the handmade: he alternates between painting and printmaking, enjoying experimenting with different methods—from monotypes to potato prints and even utilising a kitchen appliance in the form of a blow torch to create marks and patterns on a recent series of prints. His playfulness comes through not just in these experimental forms of mark making, but also in his witty titles which prompts the viewer to look and look again.

Chambers’ prints offer a distinct kind of encounter—one that invites slowness, introspection and imagination. Wherever you come across them—hung on a wall, in a print fair or a quiet corner of a gallery—they continue to draw us in, revealing something new each time.

Chambers himself views printmaking as a place where thought and image can meet in experimental ways. He has said that printmaking “allows for ambiguity, suggestion and echo.” One of his trademarks is his use of pattern and repetition; this is particularly true in his prints where flat backgrounds often hum with intricate textures and geometric designs that give extra layers, subtlety and sophistication to each work.

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