Lindisfarne

Description

• Title, Lindisfarne
• Medium: Acrylic & collage
• Substrate: 12oz cotton canvas
• Size: 183cm x 122cm
• Style: Contemporary
• Frame: No

‘Lindisfarne’ is painted from the foreshore to the South East of the Island; it’s multi-layered surface rubbed, scratched, splashed, poured and scraped into life using sand, hessian and acrylic paint. Holy Island itself sits close to the horizon increasing its sense of isolation and the North Sea breaks onto the black, igneous rocks of the Whin Sill.

Lindisfarne or Holy Island on the Northumberland coast in Northern England is a spectacular ‘island’ connected to the mainland by a causeway. The causeway is covered by the sea at high tide and woe-betide the unwary traveller who fails to check tide times before venturing across. The recorded history of Holy Island dates as far back as the 6th century. In 635 a monastery was founded at Lindisfarne by St Aidan as a centre of early Celtic Christianity. He was succeeded by St Cuthbert in whose lifetime the Lindisfarne gospels were written and upon whose death his body refused to decay, thereby attracting pilgrims from all over Europe and bringing wealth to the monastery (people certainly knew how to have a good time in those days!).

Arguably Britain’s greatest artist JMW Turner drew and painted the island on his 1797 tour of the north of England. Turner’s friend and almost exact contemporary, Thomas Girtin, who sadly died at the early age of just 27, had also visited Lindisfarne the previous year and exhibited two watercolours of the subject at the Royal Academy in 1797 just before Turner set off. It’s likely the two friends discussed the subject prior to Turner’s trip as they recorded exactly the same subjects.

An original mixed media painting by David Stead, now available as a beautiful limited edition print on deep profile, archival quality canvas. The print is limited to an edition of only 150 and comes with a certificate of authentication