Deconstructed shores

Keith Purser exhibition opens at Kingsclere gallery

JENNA Burlingham Fine Art, Kingsclere, opens its first solo exhibition for the painter Keith Purseron today (Saturday).

Purser lives and works on the edge of the huge shingle bank in the shadow of Dungeness power station, in a village called Lydd-on-Sea. His home, on the tip of a headland in South-East Kent, faces on to the wide expanse of beach and looks out to the coast of France. His paintings are rich in surface and often include objects discovered on his daily walks. Sand, driftwood, beach-combed netting, gravel, shells, sea glass and broken ceramics can often be found. In some paintings, an impression is
all that is left, with the objects inscribed into their surfaces, transferred and then removed. If one
of these articles stays in the artist’s mind for long enough, it becomes the spark that determines the painting.
The irregular black shapes that feature so often are, for instance, reminiscent of the dozens of fisherman’s crates that pepper the shore.

The show will comprise a selection of Purser’s paintings from 1997 to the present day, with 39 works in total.

The exhibition will be open Tuesday to Saturday, 10am to 5pm, until November 25. with open house preview days today (Saturday, November 11, 10am to 6pm) and tomorrow 11am to 4pm.