The Gallery, Pierowall, Westray, Orkney, 2006

Work by Peter Brown. (© Peter Brown)

ONE OF THE strongest features of the Orkney landscape is subtlety. The atmosphere is characterised by shifting light and tone, shadows of cloud across the surface of the earth uncovered. Like many of the outer isles, Westray’s sands shift and change with the elements, there is a sense of fragility that is part of the island environment.

Peter Brown is an exquisitely subtle artist and his gallery in Pierowall is a wonderfully unexpected and welcoming contemporary space. The artist’s work reads like a personal form of natural erosion, a process of uncovering the mark. His work is characterised by shifting tone and colour moving effortlessly in “Elusive Echo” from warm to cool, golden hues into blue.

The artist’s use of oil crayon, uncovering layers with the movement of his hand create surface textures that are incredibly beautiful and meaningfully articulate. Subtle nuances of tone and colour are achieved with the artist’s hand that could not be matched by paint and brush. Scratched and drawn marks on canvas, paper and board, each offering a different surface of resistance enable the artist to merge softness of tone and colour with a decisive edge.

The subtlety of these works is their power, much like the landscape itself. What we see in nature is synthesised in the artist’s technique which relies on interpretation of the environment rather than literal depiction. The result is no less real and deeply affecting.

Works such as “Connections I, II and III”, “Excavation I” and “Sandrift 4” are absolutely of their place but at the same time universal in the way that they affect the viewer.

The delicacy and range of the mark and its rhythm is constantly shifting like the light across the Orcadian landscape but the realisation of place isn’t tied down to the view we can see with our eyes. There is a sense of personal archaeology in the reinterpretation of this environment that makes these works both fascinating and contemplative.

Similarly Brown’s found sculptures exhibit the work of the elements on man-made objects such as tyres, buoys and metal cast up on the tide. The tyre pieces in particular have a weathered texture that defies their original form, presenting them with the same subtle qualities as the works in oil crayon.

The buoys are made into striking contemporary vessels out of the flotsam and jetsam of the shoreline. They are also composed with an eye for unexpected beauty.

Peter Brown’s Gallery on Westray is a wonderful opportunity to stand and pause before some extraordinary work. Part of the Westray and Papay Westray Studio Trail, it is an absolute must see.

© Georgina Coburn, 2006

Link

• Westray Arts Gallery