Now showing: Nocturnes at Guildford Library

Who knew that Guildford Library lets parts of the building be used as a gallery? Well I did, but I didn't find out very long ago.

Five of my nocturnes - two you've seen, one which is another you've seen with some reworked areas and two all new - are now in central Guildford until the end of the month. If you choose to buy one, part of the purchase price will go towards supporting the library.

It may not sound that prestigious and the spaces - staircases - may not be the archetypal white cube but it actually works really well as a gallery space and I'm very happy to be there - not least because the library is central, open long hours and heavily visited. The nature of the space works well with these particular paintings too. As you walk past them, you are moving up or down
as well as across. This means the paintings' relationship with the light is constantly changing as you move and this is critical because some of them depend on subtle variation in gloss and texture to help build an impression of space. The viewers' movement increases their chances of discovering this.


When you first see them, especially in the real world instead of an artist's studio or a more conventional gallery space, they really are sledgehammer paintings - sudden small bursts of dark and swathes of the strange sodium street lights that characterise this country at night. I was genuinely surprised at just how much oomph they have. Get past that shock though and they are minutely rich and subtle and this is the other key to the library being the perfect venue. Many hundreds of people will see the paintings every week and a high proportion of them will be there fortnightly, weekly, even every day. Regulars will have a chance to get to know the paintings in a way normally denied to people unless they own them. I don't rate my chances of selling there but I don't mind about that, I think for these paintings it is one of the best places I could have found.

Click here for opening hours and the address. The paintings are there until around about the end of January - I'll confirm here when I'm sure of the date.