Three Wells-based artists are joining forces for an exhibition of work inspired by their shared love of the awe-inspiring beauty of this part of the country, its history and its architecture. To be held at Wells & Mendip Museum from 7th to 25th March, the show will offer free entry and feature many eye-catching new works by Marianne Lowen King, Freddie Bird & Lorraine Reilly Millington.

Interested in the art of transitional spaces, the trio realised they share a common theme in the imagery they create. In building up their library of sketched and photographed reference material for their work, they journey to coastal paths and seashores, moorlands, river systems, along ley lines, and to ancient or ecclesiastical places. Keeping wonder uppermost, their work represents how the experience of pilgrimages create moments of personal revelation.

MARIANNE LOWEN KING has been a designer, artist and filmmaker for more than twenty years. Drawn to certain locations through her love of ancient land & its architecture, pilgrim routes & ecclesiastic spaces, capturing the spirit of place is at the heart of her work - visualising in muted colours, with dramatic lighting and heavenly skies, triggering a connection between its soul and the observer. As a storyteller trained in television, film & design, her creative thought process tends to be in 'cinematic mode' influenced by film directors, cinematographers, film music composers.

FREDDIE BIRD specialises in large and detailed monochrome landscapes. These wild places connect us today back through myths and legends, almost to a time of magic. His influences meander through the storytelling imagery of Alfred Bestall, and Mervyn Peake, back through Edmund Dulac, Arthur Rackham, Alphonse Mucha, and Gustave Doré. Imagery reflects walking coastal paths and seashore, remote waterfalls, moor, and ancient woodland. His works, interested in tone, scale, and light and dark entice the viewer to enter the landscape, and see it as part of a journey in front of them, junctions, decisions to take, and choices of pathways ahead.

LORRAINE REILLY MILLINGTON is a Galway-born artist and musician based in Wells whose creative output across the board is built around contrasts: old meets new, dark and light, order versus disorder, the immense and the barely visible. Her recent paintings reflect the breathtaking enormity and undeniable, soaring beauty of Gothic architecture, drawing out the character of these ancient interiors. Lorraine's work contemplates the power and mysticism of these gravity-defying superstructure, the spirituality that resounds within the walls and ceilings themselves, irrespective of theology or particular belief systems.

LINK: https://www.facebook.com/events/s/the-art-of-transitional-spaces/584626653184059/

Wells & Mendip Museum, 8 Cathedral Green, Wells, Somerset BA5 2UE

www.wellsmuseum.org.uk

email: [email protected]

Free entry.