Moon over sea © David Reeve

Colouring the urban landscape

We can’t complain we haven’t had a summer this year. And summer is colour – the sea, summer fruits, summer dresses. And it is uplifting to see colour radiating from the Hastings Arts Forum walls. David Reeve’s excellent show, Urban Landscapes, celebrates his work past and present. HOT’s Lauris Morgan-Griffiths was energised by his images which were a departure from earlier work vibrated in the HAF space.

Old Cottage Hastings © David Reeve

David Reeve has lived in the Hastings area for 27 years. 26 were spent in an Old Town five-up, five-down house, then a year ago he moved into a West St Leonards bungalow, bringing him back to earth with a single storey. Having gazed down at the huggermugger jumble of Old Town houses for many years, he has yet to see how the move may change his work. He has always painted the environment, so inevitably, with a change of view there could be a change of style, colours, subject.

With the move he lost several rooms of storage space which has encouraged him to put many of his paintings from over the years together which has given him a chance to feel the paintings coexist, and for other people to see his range. Reeve explains, “I produce different styles of work as ideas occur to me based on the urban landscape inspired by Hastings Old Town and the surrounding area, sometimes abstract, sometimes figurative. In this exhibition I have decided to put various paintings created over a few years together in one space.”

Sea © David Reeve

The two things that stand out are his accomplished use of colour, abstraction, playfulness, and the atmosphere he creates in his images – through his paint palette, and composition; sometimes busy, sometimes quiet, sometimes colourful, other times cool in tone. A change of colour palette, as in his image of  Dungeness, which evokes the bleakness and loneliness of that atmospheric windswept area. I also particularly liked Sea, flat blue plains, Rothko-style of  sea and sky, divided by thin stripes of yellows, whites and darker blues that often feature on the horizon line.

Spatially it is interesting, I liked the flat planes that feature in some of the paintings, like the angular shapes of house cheek by jowl in the Old Town twittens. But Reeve has given them a fresh, Cubist, abstract perspective. In Moon over Sea, above, the block of  the harbour arm, surrounding buildings and a pale moon in the darkening evening sky is very evocative of those full moons that rise over the sea once a month.

He admits his work splits people between those who like his figurative work and those who support his abstractions. The feedback has been interesting– I imagine in a good way, judging from the amount of work sold.

He has no idea where his work will take him next, he is instinctive, inspired and led by mark making and colour; he will put  a mark or a colour down which will suggest something else and it builds  from there. It may sound random but Reeve works on intuition and feelings. However he does it, it works.

Beach strollers © David Reeve

He says, “My work is process led and I feel the paintings have similar instinctive colour arrangements in mark making and drawing. I find it stimulating taking risks to move my work forward, evolve and develop as an artist. This helps to keep my art fresh and exciting to produce.”  And exciting it definitely is.

Urban Landscapes/David Reeve is at Hastings Arts Forum, 20 Marine Court, St Leonards-on-Sea TN38 0DX until 21 August. Opening times are Tuesday to Sunday from 11am to 5pm.

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