Events at Penwith Gallery

The Penwith Gallery’s ‘Hepworth Room’ is home to unique exhibitions from our own Penwith Gallery Archive Collection, artistic luminaries of the 20th Century and loaned works from ‘Friends of The Penwith’ as well as pop up educational shows. Along with our varied exhibitions of artworks The Hepworth Room also displays treasures from our paper archive of both The Penwith Society and Penwith Galleries Ltd. On permanent display in The Hepworth Room is our pride and joy, Barbara Hepworth’s sculpture ‘Magic Stone’, John Milne’s sculpture ‘Wave Form’ and a wonderful 8ft photograph of Barbara by Peter Kinnear.

Specific past shows include ‘Jeff Harris and friends’ in conjunction with The Belgrave Gallery and an exclusive ‘Cornel Lucas’ photography exhibition. This year we will be continuing to host exclusive exhibitions with renowned photographer Brian Seed in July and as a special Christmas time treat, an exhibition of Christmas cards by the sculptor Denis Mitchell in November. We will also be hosting a joint exhibition of artist and author Tom Cross with The Belgrave Gallery in October.

A response to and a respite from my life.

I nearly called this show ‘“Driven to Abstraction”, My Family and Other Reasons Why I Paint’. I feel compelled to create and make work, as an escape, a retreat, a therapy, a release. I can’t not create. However, I am first and foremost a mum of three boys (twins 8 and a 9-year-old), all three are homeschooled. Life for me is full, to say the least; my role and responsibilities can sometimes feel overwhelming to the point of suffocation. In the past, my sense of self has been lost in the melee of everyday life.

I have recently had a shift in my perception of why I make art; I used to think myself as an artist in spite of my role as a mother, that (with frustration) motherhood was preventing me from fully fulfilling my role as an artist. I have come to realise that is because of motherhood that I must also be an artist, to create balance in my life, to fulfil my whole self and to express my life experiences.

In addition, my paintings are a direct response to, rather than in-spite of, my role as a mother. My practice is respite from the chaos, but more than being a cathartic exercise, the paintings themselves are a direct expression of the all-encompassing demands upon me and the constant fluctuation between chaos and calm that is my life.

Exhibiting a variety of sculptures, ceramics, paintings, drawings, photographs and prints from our Associate Members of the Penwith Society of Arts.

We are delighted to introduce you to our 2024 Young Penwith Artist, Imogen Allen.

Imogen Allen is a painter whose work explores the energetic terrain of our conscious and subconscious experience through the physical language of colour, shape and gesture. Her paintings are luminous, meditative portals of reflection, which embrace the physicality of our earth as a pathway to the spiritual, transcendental experience.

Having grown up near Zennor, South West Cornwall, on the edge of a moorland of lichen blanketed standing stones and ethereal grasses, Allen sees the human relationship to wildness, as central to the architecture of our being. Her work is informed deeply by this profound connection to the voices of the natural world; the characteristics of plants, fungi and the elements constantly inform the direction of her paintings. Imogen intends each work to possess its own distinct personality and explore its own painterly terrain, like each organism within the ecosystem. The thread which unifies her work is something ineffable, but can be felt through characteristics of sensitive touch, vivid colour and shifting depth that permeate her canvases.

Allen’s work puts the organic experiential at its forefront, commanding the physiological reflection of the viewer through the subtle push and pull between the definable and the non-definable. Her works offer questions, not answers, and instead of telling a narrative for us to unpick, they are intended as vessels from which we can feel from.

We simply cannot wait to see the wonder that Imogen Allen will create for her solo show with us in our studio gallery 26th July – 24th August 2024.