No city can beat Brighton for its lanes brimming with independent boutique shops, eating houses and art galleries.
I recently had another great weekend with one of my daughters. Sun and heat strangely turning the buzz of commerce to a slower, timeless consideration bathing in the stillness of the day. It was in this near twilight experience in the happiness of city buzz that my daughter and I perused the lanes, pausing for a picnic lunch in the pavilion grounds on Saturday, and on the stony beach the next day.
We spent some time talking with artist and owner of Dynamite Gallery, Henry Gomez, in Trafalgar St checking out the vast and diverse genres of 2D and 3D art pieces currently exhibited.
Some pieces quirky, some retro, some serious acrylics contemporary in nature.
All of them fun and inspiring. There was a range of prices to fit most budgets, but alas my favourite was above my pay grade…a Sam Hewitt “Main Square”.
I remember seeing one of his in a magazine 21 Beautiful Homes, British edition a few years ago. I remember being fascinated by it. I loved the characters individuality contrasting with the statue-like shadows. I could just image the personal, secret, funny or perhaps dark thoughts swirling around each mind. The different places they were going, the different people they were to meet; I imaged the different outcomes to their different day. All this, random, uncontainable goings-on, hidden in different body sizes, postures, demeanours, anchored to reassuring sameness by the shadows they cast; all silhouetting obediently in the same direction bowing to natural forces, bigger and longer than their human reality they were obediently attached to and sun dependent upon.
I am, I think a townie, rather than a city slicker, however I do like metropolitan art. What to make of this one? I cannot figure out – Too wide a quadrant to be in a built up inner city yet has the beat of all that makes up a city, complete with the afternoon, or morning joggers.
I was brightened and excited by the chance to study up close and personal one of his high Angle canvasses.
Sam Hew
itt offers original paintings and limited edition prints with Wychwood Art online and at art galleries around the country like Henry Gomez’ Brighton gallery. Hewitt has been painting professionally for ten years and appears regularly at shows at art fairs and galleries internationally and around the UK. He works predominantly in oils, taking the human form, light and the urban environment as his subjects.
Note-to-self, one day I must have my own Sam Hewitt hanging on my wall.
Antoinettejames.com 