My First Solo Show

Sandscapes & Tide Sculptures at Montague Gallery, Worthing, 15-21 July 2025

I’m proud to announce that I'll be having my first solo exhibition this summer, showing a series of paintings inspired by Worthing beach at low tide, plus photographs recording the erosion of wooden sea defences. So, what is this exhibition all about? Let me give you some background. I started working on the paintings some years ago, in fact just after my sister died in the Covid pandemic. Before then, I had let my art practice lapse a bit and I felt lost, so I looked around for inspiration and found a free online course offered by Louise Fletcher. I really liked her abstract landscape paintings and found her down-to-earth Yorkshire approach appealing. The course lasted only a few days but I learned an amazing amount and was keen to learn more so I joined her online community, Art Tribe. That was my kick start. I began exploring ideas for new work and decided on abstract seascapes inspired by the beaches of Worthing, which I knew so well. I eventually came up with what I regard as my breakthrough work, a painting that captures a memory of the beach at Splash Point where my sisters and I spent long summer days when we lived at the pub down the road.

We would stroll along Warwick Road in our swimsuits and ponchos, and head for our beach, opposite the rowing club. By the beach, there was a telescope so you could get a closer view of Brighton and the Seven Sisters, and a defunct sea mine. The beach was several feet below the level of the prom so we had to jump down. Then we would throw an old tar-stained blanket onto the pebbles and lie there for hours. Sometimes, parts of the beach were covered in rank-smelling seaweed but we learned to ignore it. Our dad very occasionally joined us for a brief swim when the tide was in, he looked quite comical in his half wet-suit, flippers and snorkel. My younger sister used to run barefoot across the pebbles and dive into the sea from the breakwater to join him for some underwater swimming. I was never brave enough for that. The beach was unique in its sea defences: as well as the familiar timber groynes (we called them breakwaters) that reached from the pebbles to the sands, there was a massive sloping wooden barrier going across the beach, called a revetment, to protect the beach from the power of the sea. When the weather was stormy and the tide was high, the sea waves splashed up against the revetment (hence Splash Point) and I can remember a time when the sea came halfway up Warwick Road, flooding the basements of the houses. All that was a lifetime ago and our family beach has changed beyond all recognition. The revetment has been replaced with huge boulders and the pebble beach is now level with the prom, which has been transformed with trees, benches and a fountain. That’s why I called this painting The Lost Beach. I did two more paintings in this series, calling them Old Splash Point and Where We Played.

Work in progress

The Lost Beach

Old Splash Point

Where We Played