Kings Road Gallery & Tanya Baxter Contemporary, London, United Kingdom

Making for me on the rim of the bay A fiery brute in wild array by Pauline Bewick

Pauline Bewick Biography

Pauline Bewick (B. 1935 Northumberland, England)

Pauline was brought up on a small farm in Co. Kerry, Ireland. Her mother Harry brought her two daughters to Ireland in the late 30's leaving Northumberland, England. Harry wrote an account of their life in Kerry called "A Wild Taste" (Methuen). After Kerry, they went to live in Wales and England and travelled from progressive school to school, living in a caravan, a houseboat, a railway carriage, a workman's hut, a gate lodge and, later in a Dublin city house. Bewick has now been living back in Kerry for 28 years with her husband Patrick Melia. Their two daughters Poppy and Holly are also artists. Bewick works in many media in three large studios. She started to paint at the age of two and has continued throughout her life. "Two to Fifty" was a retrospective exhibition (1,500 works) at the Guinness Hop Store in 1985, which attracted record attendances. "The Yellow Man" exhibition in 1996 at the Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin, also drew huge numbers of all ages. The artist's biography was written by Dr. James White, art historian and former Director of the National Gallery of Ireland; "Pauline Bewick, Painting a Life". (Wolfhound Press 1985; new edition 2001) In 2007 Pauline Bewick was commissioned to visually translate the 18th Century poem 'The Midnight Court' by Brian Merriman

Pauline Bewick's visual translation. in eleven pieces. carries the mastery and the genius of The Midnight Court readily. Clearly, as an artist she is a disciple of Merriman and dogma holds no fear for her. She conveys the plots and the themes of the poem with all of the persuasiveness and conviction for which her art is known. Merriman, with his unique idiom, his mixture of mischief and mirth, naturally attracted her. Like Merriman, she has the ability to startle and to surprise, reflecting shade and emphasis to strike the poetic emotional experience of fear. sensuality, fantasy and the impish gaiety of life. The geography of the poem. its inhabitants. Their customs, charms and dwellings. the plants and animals are all to be found meshed with the double ironies characteristic of the Merriman genre. The.wit of her line, the colour and abandon of her interpretation match Merriman's play on words in that uniquely harlequin way. Her visual translation of The Midnight Court shows Pauline Bewick in her most glorious form, eloquent and expansive. It will recall to The Midnight Court a new jury and an even more extensive audience.

©2009 PicassoMio - All rights reserved.