Own work: 'Archway, Bath'

     Welcome to the Salon des Refuses. I painted this specifically for an exhibition in London. Not something I usually do as living in south west Wales it is such a schlep. Anyway I was relieved of the hassle of getting it up to town and back by being rejected. Alas.

     The judging criteria meant that this isn't in my usual mixed media. I have had to work in water soluble media only. This has meant a change in my technique, and a little learning in the process. The composition is also slightly different in that I have included the urban context of the arch, which I usually play down or omit altogether.

     Perhaps this is not sort of architecture that one immediately thinks of in connection with Bath - it being Georgian and all that. This structure is however late Victorian, the work of the Scottish born architect J M Brydon, and illustrates how by the turn of twentieth century British architecture was swinging back to full blown Classicism. It forms part of his complex of civic buildings - Guildhall, Market and Art Gallery - in the centre of the city. The arch is merely the rear entrance to the site. I love its sculptural, mannerist qualities.