Winter Light by Rory Prout

Winter Light opens at the blackShed on the 6th of December

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.'

Prout’s practice explores the possibility of inventing a novel painting process attuned to these particular aesthetics of place and atmosphere. Walking through the landscapes is the first part of the painting practice for Prout, as these works start as photographs. Prout often takes these images in specific environmental conditions; during heavy fog, rising morning mist, or at dusk in winter.

These works are the product of a unique and layered approach that Prout has 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.

Don’t miss your chance to experience this seasonal exhibition, against the backdrop of the wintery woodland landscape…