Currently living and working in Yorkshire, Peter Wray and partner and fellow-artist Judy Collins enjoy a deep and resonant relationship with Penwith, where they will soon be re-locating both their home and studio. Despite coming together from different artistic backgrounds, their response to materials, art process and landscape is very close, and this is nowhere more apparent than in their collaborative paintings, which evoke the landscape of the Penwith coastline, enabling their individual practices to move toward a meeting point and a natural progression towards a collective expression of individual, though shared, experience. Wray’s interest in the personal significance of harbours and sheltered places, and Collins’s awareness of the ‘edges’ of things; sea/land, man/nature, etc., and the extremes of weather, merge effectively in the harbours, quarries and inlets of West Cornwall. While initial inspiration and content may vary, certain elements link their discrete contributions to the work: an interest in textural qualities, sensitive use of colour, exploration of their medium and a mutual respect for artistic integrity and subject matter.

A simple way to explain the actual process of the unusual practice of two artists working collaboratively on one painting is, perhaps, to describe it as a ‘dialogue’. Starting points and ideas are discussed, both verbally and with paint, materials, etc., each beginning with an idea and exploring it until the other takes over the idea and expands it; this is repeated as an ongoing discourse until an agreed conclusion is reached whereby the resulting image takes on its own ‘voice’. Although there is often an allusion to harbour and landscape scenes there is a strong abstract element to the work: images may begin as ‘depictions’ of specific places but during the painting process they take on a life of their own - elements are painted over but the imprint remains visible, creating an archaeology beneath the painted surface, which is constructed from layers of plaster and oil paint built up and then scratched into, exposing the layers beneath: a process reminiscent of an archaeological dig or excavation. In general, the work tends to draw upon embodiments of memories and experiences rather than specific locations. The process evolves as a memory of a contour, shape, texture or experience which is laid down on the surface. The mark made, a further response or recollection is called up, which is then recorded and edited until something finally feels authentic. Although firmly based within the landscape of Penwith, the paintings are predominantly abstract in execution, and are as much about the materials used and the process of using them. Ideas develop and decisions are constantly revised as the work progresses. Textures, scumbles, marks and scratches coupled with relatively simple, universal forms are used to realise a tactile surface, built up of layers of paint, grit and plaster to affirm a conceptual as well as a visual depiction of experience.

The nature and strength of Wray and Collins’s relationship with the landscape of Penwith is reflected, through their painting, as a deep involvement with the work as it develops. There is a fluidity in the process, where boundaries and forms change; the surface being drawn onto often many times; textures building up and ideas changing in their complexity. Tones, harmonious shapes and linear elements form - and break - connections, creating a sense of atmosphere, space and being - the results of a discourse between themselves and the work, or the activity of working, and inviting the viewer to complete the picture from the resources of his or her own experience - to ‘share’ and cogitate.

Cornwall Contemporary is delighted to hold this highly anticipated first exhibition of collaborative paintings by Peter Wray and Judy Collins.