Tessa Newcomb's art arises from piercingly clear, pristine perceptions of the everyday and natural worlds. The drawings she continually makes - such as on riotously weedy Suffolk allotments, observing curious, even bizarre happenings in manicured Parisian squares or alongside Venetian canals, and while ambling or cycling among the clear light and spacious landscapes of East Anglia - are a rich imaginative source for her paintings. Born in Suffolk in 1955, daughter of the painter Mary Newcomb, Tessa sees her art as inseparable from ordinary life. Each of her paintings seems to tell a secret story. Their eerily beautiful atmospheres and curiously juxtaposed imagery recall the art of Christopher Wood (1901-1930). Among her sources of inspiration, she counts 'watching slow, atmospheric films', early 20th-century urban photography, 'going places and rail journeys' and reading poetry. This well-illustrated book - partly based on the author's conversations with Tessa Newcomb - is the first survey of this artist of singular vision, with a keen, popular following.
It reveals how her subtly multi-layered paintings are illuminated by an interior radiance, an awareness of what she calls 'Spaces and Silences', and a rare, magical poignancy.
- ISBN10 1904537944
- ISBN13 9781904537946
- Publish Date 4 March 2010
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 28 June 2016
- Publish Country GB
- Imprint Sansom & Co
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 144
- Language English