VERNON ROSE
Born in Manchester in 1930. He studied at Manchester Art College, afterwards living, working and exhibiting in west Cornwall for many years.
He moved to Suffolk in 1981 exhibiting at The Denis Taplin Gallery, Woodbridge for several years. His work then consisting of small, meticulously detailed paintings of imagined landscapes and miniature portraits.
Due to failing eyesight he has for the last few years been painting in a broader style, much of his work clearly influenced by strongly retained images of Cornish harbours. Since 2000 he has exhibited regularly at The Gallery & Café, Halesworth; Town Gallery Halesworth; The Aldeburgh Gallery; Market House Gallery, Marazion, Cornwall; Cottons Yard Gallery, Yoxford; The Fisher Theatre Gallery, Bungay; The New Cut Arts Centre, Halesworth and The Grapevine Gallery, Norwich. His work appears in many local collections.
He was registered blind in 2004 and with the limitations and distortions of his remaining sight, he now chooses to ignore such restricting trivialities as perspective, relative size and view point, thus plan and elevation are often represented together in his work. Also he frequently resorts to the creative use of masking tape. His preoccupation with harbours and fishing remains the subject in much of his work.
Of his own work he says:
“When a painting is finished I can see only a rather vague image of the whole, I wear powerful magnifying specs to work about 5-6 inches from the canvas and so perspective, comparative scale, etc. have to be ignored. If I need a straight line I use masking tape.
I am told that many of my paintings look like West Cornwall although nowhere specific. I am in part aware of this as the many years I spent in Cornwall have established permanent images in my memory and are frequently the places of my dreams so that I know the places in my paintings. I know what is round the corner and along the passages. I know the people in the houses and pubs. Maybe some of the people looking at them know as well. Since leaving Manchester apart from a comparatively short time in London I have always lived by the sea and much of that time in boats of various kinds. I have in some paintings made a conscious effort to paint East Anglia”.
Vernon P Rose's paintings are being shown in association with the Aldeburgh Gallery.
