Light and life in the Old Town

Alan Wright’s exhibition Light and Life at the Isobel Blackman Centre in the Old Town includes both drawings and stained glass works, reflecting the two artistic courses he has followed. He first developed his interest in stained glass while studying fine arts in Bristol, and several years later took a course in Swansea.

Sunrise from the Old Town.

There are relatively few artists who specialise in stained glass, says Alan, and even fewer who do the extra treatments, such as painting, staining, firing and etching glass, as opposed to acquiring coloured glass, cutting it up and putting it together with lead.

There are three stained glass pieces in the exhibition, including a second version of a commission for a multi-faith room at The Retreat, a pioneering mental health hospital in York, and an art deco-style view of sunrise seen from over the rooftops of the Old Town. The third is an espalier tree – espalier is the method of training a fruit tree to grow in a single plane against a trellis or wall. Alan’s espalier tree uses the appliqué technique, in which the glass is bonded onto a backing sheet with resin, leaving it free of the usual black lead lines.

Another stained glass panel by Alan can be seen at the Fishermen’s Museum, just a couple of minutes’ walk from the Isobel Blackman Centre. This was a commission as part of the museum’s Millenium commemorations.

Local themes

Alan was born and bred in Hastings, and local views and themes predominate among the water colour and pastel drawings. There is a water colour view of Beachy Head painted from the Shining Cliffs in St Helen’s Wood, near where Alan grew up and lives now.

“Water colours have a sort of parallel quality to glass, it’s like using a transparent medium, allowing light to be reflected back from the paper through the colour,” he says “In a sense it’s the nearest equivalent to glass.” This is also why he often produces his designs for stained glass in water colours. Several of these designs are also on display.

The oak tree is another recurrent motif, again from St Helen’s Wood. “The tree image and the espalier are almost like a symbol for the Tree of Life, so that’s partly why I called the exhibition Light and Life,” Alan says.

He is one of the first to take advantage of the Isobel Blackman Centre’s decision to provide a space for local artists. A bustling community centre, the centre will make an interesting contrast as an exhibition space with the Jerwood Gallery across the street when it opens its doors to artists with a national and international reputation.

Light and Life: an exhibition by Alan Wright at the Isobel Blackman Centre, Winding Street, Hastings, 29 October to 24 November. Mon-Fri 9am to 5pm, weekends 10am to 2pm. Tel 01424 446 428. Alan’s website is www.glasswright.co.uk.

Also in: Visual Arts