29 July - 26 August
Opening Friday 28th July 7:30pm, hospitality provided
"My walk on the Camino was a journey across a varying landscape , sometimes at high elevations: the Pyrenees and mountains of Galicia, sometimes endless plains and vineyards - the regions of Navarra and Rioja, Castille Leon, and the legendary Meseta. It was an experience of long days of walking, surrendering to the rhythm of my footsteps. The connection of the pilgrims from medieval times to those I had followed on Youtube in preparation, numberless over time.
In these paintings I have re-visited the material in my mind’s eye giving painterly expression to my own pilgrimage. The encounters with abiding images, the gritty endless track of the Camino itself all waymarked with yellow arrows; coming into villages and finding adobe structures made from raw brick and breeze-block. Constant exposure to a different palette- ochres and pale colours would prevail in blistering sun; every subtle and subdued tone when under grey skies horizons leagues away or imminent snow or driving rain. In retrospect these are treasures. The greatest above all though, waking pre-dawn and setting out under all immensity - the stars! Stars I have never seen in Sheffield. Then the gradual shift from desaturated colour with the slow dawn, to moments when every dried- out blade of grass was lit as if under spotlight. "
John Brokenshire 2017