Source @ River & Rowing Museum, Henley

In a breakaway from traditional riverside scenes, the River & Rowing Museum at Henley-on-Thames is showing its first exhibition of abstract art.

All the paintings have been inspired by the River Thames, offering vivid individual interpretations of feelings, moods, colours, and connections to the history and natural beauty of this great river.

Source, the show’s title, is a play on the meaning of the word, said Terry Cripps of the Parkbench Group exhibiting. The source of a river — all six artists are based in the Cotswolds where the Thames begins as a small trickle before journeying to the sea — and source as a fount of inspiration.

Each artist draws upon personal memories and experiences of the river. Sue Rae explored upriver in a kayak and on foot in order to experience the river in all seasons, gathering tangible and intangible memories of light, shadow, shape and sound as she went. Sue shows paintings with evocative titles such as After Flooding and River Night Sounds along with sketchbooks and maps of her journeys.

Terry Cripps’s work is often inspired by recent travels.

Here, focusing on “human interaction with landscape and commerce along the early reaches of the Thames,” he works either on paper using acrylic, ink, spray paint and pigment, or on river driftwood. His Henley pictures are bright sunlit abstracts where dancing flecks of pigment seem to float above intense flat washes of colour, offering immense scope for viewers’ own responses.

Penny Prince’s inspiration came from flooded wintry fields and the noisy pleasure-filled summertime river. Her lyrical Red Kite Slipstream series in mixed media captures ephemeral moments — moments when the world barely registers on consciousness.

For painter and poet Marianne Hellwig John “ideas of water in all its guises” provoke images of colour, movement, light... leading to works such as Pervious Edge (top left), where surface broken, canvas bisected, an unseen blade or bow is evoked, cutting through the water, trailing wisp-like ripples and reflections.

That Noela Bewry and Maggie Shaw both work in textiles as well as painting is clear from the works displayed. Bewry, inspired by the flow of the river, applies layers upon layers to create rich, bold paintings such as Flow — Cadmium Rings. While Shaw describes her Air series, four big pieces playing with tonality in serried ranks, as “about the light and mist enveloping the Thames”.

Source
River & Rowing Museum, Henley
Until January 18
Visit rrm.co.uk