Winter Light by Rory Prout

Winter Light runs between 6th December until 31st January

This exhibition stems from an interest in descriptions of landscape and environment within Irish literary and folklore traditions. The paintings featured depict scenes from the forests and chalk lands of the South Downs as well as from the hills, mountains and farmlands of Prout’s native Munster.

Prout’s works for this exhibition have been inspired by Irish literature and folklore. He has been influenced by an idea in Irish storytelling that human mood can settle into the landscape; that, as writer Kevin Barry puts it, 'feeling escapes from people and seeps into the stones of a place.'

About Rory Prout -

Rory Prout grew up in Tipperary in Ireland and this landscape, among many others since then have seeped into his work and process as an artist.

His practice explores the possibility of inventing a novel painting process attuned to these particular aesthetics of place and atmosphere. The works start as photographs taken in specific environmental conditions; during heavy fog, rising morning mist, or at dusk in winter. Walking through these opaque landscapes is the first part of a painting practice that continues in the studio.

Developed over several years, his process combines traditional painting methods with more disparate materials and tools. Rollers, brushes, sanders and laser engravers are used to build layers of image and texture into gesso, paint and resin on canvas or wood. The process has developed in pursuit of certain formal characteristics in painting; soft edges, transparency, luminosity, flatness of surface, illusions of depth and an uncertain location of the image within it.