© Danny Mooney. 'Man-in-the-mirror' Oil on canvas 40 x 50-cm

4 on the Shore

‘Unexpected Pleasures’ is the title of the first exhibition by new Hastings-based arts group ‘4 on the Shore’. This group of four established local artists – C June Barnes, Danny Mooney, Alison Purdy and Donna Fleming Hall – were brought together by their desire to bring accessible artwork and design to the people of Hastings and beyond. HOT’s Erica Smith caught up with Danny Mooney (self-portrait pictured above) to ask him about his work, the group, and their show.

How does living in Hastings / St Leonards inspire / inform your work?
My studio is in Robertson Street, a short walk along seafront from where I live in St Leonards. My walk always invigorates and inspires me. In the 2 years or so since I’ve been working there I have moved from predominately making abstract oil paintings, to realism. I make wire sculptures of people I see walking about, I paint portraits and most recently I have started painting landscapes. Landscapes in St Leonards means the sea.

© Danny Mooney

You work in a variety of media and styles. Will all of these be represented in the show at Stade Hall?
Early this year I bought a Kindle Fire HD tablet computer. Using an app ‘Sketchbook Pro’, I now use this as my sketchbook. With a pencil and paper I could only make quick black and white sketches, but on the Kindle Fire a whole new world of colour has opened up for me. It’s like a cross between drawing, oil painting and watercolour that dries instantly. I’m going to be showing a selection of my work, covering a broad range of styles and a broad range of prices. There will be oil paintings, (both figurative and abstract), wire sculptures, one off unique signed prints as well as examples from unlimited editions.

© Donna Fleming Hall

The artwork of the four artists, and the media you each choose to work in are all very different from one another. How did you meet, and what made you decide to form 4 on the Shore and work together?
I’m not sure who it was that first had the idea of setting up an artists’ group.

© C June Barnes

Alison, Donna and June were already in talks with a few other people when I was invited to join. We met up and it was soon clear that the four of us could work well together. Alison put in a lot of work finding a venue for our first show, and when we settled on The Stade Hall, it seemed perfect. Four of us on the foreshore. The rest, as they say, is history.

© Alison Purdy

Do you see a divide between ‘fine art’ and ‘applied art’?
Our strength as a group is that we all produce different types of artwork, but they sit comfortably with each other. I’ve never been a fan of divisions in art. I see no dividing lines between 2-d and 3-d art work. How much does a painting have to protrude into the third dimension to become a sculpture? Are June’s pieces best described as textiles, sculptures or paintings? Is there a division between ‘Fine art’ and ‘Craft’. Really, I don’t see that it matters. In my opinion, if it looks good it’s in!

Describe your piece titled ‘4 on the Shore’?
We wanted our group to showcase our different artistic styles, but it was also important to us that there was some unifying factor. At one of our meetings we came up with the idea of a ‘Challenge Piece’ and after some deliberation we decided that we should each come up with an artwork inspired by our group name, ‘4 on the shore’. One morning on the way to the studio the sky above me was so dark, but as it was clear on the horizon it meant that the contrast was really high. I was fascinated watching someone playing with their dogs on the beach. As I painted them a sea gull flew across, and I realised I had it. 4 on the shore.

4 on the Shore’s first group show, Unexpected Pleasures, runs from Thursday 22 to Tuesday 27 August at The Stade Hall, The Stade  TN34 3FJ.

Opening times are:
Thursday 10am– 7pm
Friday 10am–5pm – Private View: 5–8pm
Saturday & Sunday 10am–8pm
Monday & Tuesday 10am–7pm

You can find out more about the show and the artists on their website.

Also in: Visual Arts