Mike Service: Still Lifes & the Caribbean

15 June - 9 July

Returning from a trip to the Grenadines this spring, Mike Service has developed his en plein-air sketches into fuller paintings. The obvious attractions of sandy beaches, crystal clear waters and verdant hills are not this painter’s primary concern, but more the old fishermans’ houses and huts which are full of a raw beauty, with Caribbean colour and history. The abundant material for exciting compositions provided, for Mike Service, a new platform to explore his practice and to interpret this environment with a fresh approach, through oils applied with brush and palette knife.

Walking into this exhibition the energetic and vigourous paintings of the Caribbean are balanced by the calm of his latest still life compositions. Single rose stems sit in simple glass tumblers and the ordinary dandelion, plucked from the edge of the footpath has a renewed beauty in a whiskey tumbler. These studies show a different sense of observation and demonstrate the full skills of this painter.

 

Papa's Banana Patch, Hamilton, Bequia
oil on canvas, 2019
51 x 66cm

Newquay Harbour

oil on canvas, 2016 - 2019

52 x 45cm 

Vaison La Romaine
watercolour on paper, 2019
21 x 32cm
 

Kites Over Ile De Ré

oil on canvas, 2016 - 2019

80 x 80cm  

Mike Service trained in Fine Art at Bath Spa University after taking early retirement and has exhibited his paintings widely in the UK including in Bath, London and at the Royal West of England Academy, Bristol. Represented by David Simon Contemporary since 2014, first solo exhibition 2019.