From Boatyard to Ballroom

An exhibition exploring the relationship between figure and environment.

Ysabel Winzar explores the boatyard, while Rosemary Moser studies figures in action on the dancefloor.

Both artists have had a long involvement with the arts, and in recent years have worked together in the same printmaking studio at Salcombe Art Club. From Boatyard to Ballroom features oil and acrylic paintings and printmaking, all developed from extensive observation and sketchbook work carried out on site - be it at the nightclub, the party or the boatyard.

Having worked in a Salcombe boatyard and sail loft, and as a keen sailor, Ysabel Winzar feels quite at home in an environment where skilled tradesmen repair and maintain inboard diesel engines, outboard engines, fibreglass and timber hulls, RNLI lifeboats, local crab fishing boats and safety equipment. For Ysabel, the medium of her work relates to the subject matter, so the tools of the boatbuilding shed suggest the direct carving of woodcuts, aluminium plate etching provides a different quality of mark-making, and oil paintings offer a still broader approach to describe the engineers and boat builders in the environment of the boatyard.

Ysabel grew up in a family of artists and art teachers, and after a career in the boatyard it's hardly surprising that these themes should present themselves through her painting and printmaking. In recent years she has studied painting and drawing locally with Mike Glanville, Jenny Johnson and Jeremy Scrine, as well as attending a summer school at the Slade Art School in London. She has exhibited in Salcombe at Cove's Quay Gallery and Salcombe Art Club, as well as showing her work with Press Gang Printmakers and the South Hams Arts Forum.

When Rosemary Moser was a young teenager, she regularly went to the ballet with her mother. An aunt gave her a book, 'How to Sketch the Ballet', and she has drawn and painted figures and dancers ever since. On her daughter's hen night, Rosemary inadvertantly ended up at the local nightclub, where she was fascinated by the movement of the figures in the environment, and more recently her teenage grandchildren have been happy to allow her to blend into the background at their parties, sketchbook in hand. From these studies Rosemary develops lively drypoints and monoprints and, on a larger scale, colourful acrylic paintings.
Her latest passions are depicting the the ballroom setting of the Argentinian tango, and the local nightclub dancing scene in Kingsbridge.
"I love the contrast between the intense and serious tango with the joyous lack of inhibition of the girls in the night clubs."

Since attending art school in the 1950s, Rosemary has exhibited widely in Hampshire, London and Devon. Painting has always been a passion, but in the 1960s she added creative embroidery to her portfolio, and for 17 years exhibited with the Devon Guild of Craftsmen. She is an active member of Salcombe Art Club, Press Gang and the South Hams Arts Forum, with whom she has exhibited in recent years.

www.pressgangprintmakers.org.uk

For more information visit http://www.harbourhouse.org.uk/gallery-RMoser%26YWinzar12.html