During 2010 Tessa Newcomb embarked on a series of paintings, often small in nature , that depicted the idiosyncratic, and carefully crafted worlds of allotments. There could not have been a better subject matter as her painting are, in a way, like allotments themselves. They are both places where all kinds of crazy eccentricities can be found side by side with the beautiful and the humorous.
Tessa Newcomb's paintings are rooted in East Anglian tradition of her mother Mary and the likes of Mary Potter. They have a dream-like hazy realism that makes you smile whenever you pass one of her work. They hide an enigmatic narrative and often depict a simple act that makes one recall such things as a summers day or childhood experience. She manages to keep the images so very simple in the most complex way. The detail draws you from one side of the picture to another and leaves you wanting to look again, and again to make sure you have taken it all in, taking the viewer on a waltz with nature.
The paintings from 2010, of what she terms "The Plot", are a wonderful example of her laser focused artistic eye's ability to capture the full range of human activity in what ,nowadays, is one of the last "common" areas in our modern world - the allotment. A place of individual personality where there are few rules other than those associated with the produce.The result is a place where you can find redundant cans of "Broadside Ale " ,upside down on canes, next to a scarecrow with a mask and pipe wearing an old Duffel coat tied at the middle with red bailing twine. Both there for the same reason, made by different men,- usually- and showing creativity they would be banned from displaying at home.
And what of the shed? This is the curtained festooned wooden"castle" where the king retires to consider the finer points of life. Often these rudimentary shelters are made from discarded bits and pieces and have developed from the very things that they contain.We all need a shed, otherwise what would we do with things we didn't know with to do with ? With a shed it is simple -" put them in the shed!"
Blondes Fine Art are pleased to be able to offer a selection of small oils by Tessa Newcomb , each with its own humour and narrative. Shown above are two such work -"From the plot " is initialled and dated 2010, depicts a simple vase of flowers and has been painted on a piece of discarded pine which no doubt came from a shed somewhere. The other titled "Welsh shed" a later work dated 2013 but both are of the very essence of Newcomb.
Tessa Newcomb was born, and now lives in Suffolk, only leaving between 1973 - 76 to study at the Bath Academy of Art. She has exhibited widely and is now very much a firm favourite in the East Anglian art scene. Click to see the other work by this artist.