Buy Good Art: Ken Hurd
Our first visit to ‘Art In The Pen’ at Skipton in August 2019 inspired us to willingly hand over money for works which pleased us. Seeing creations at first hand and meeting the artists certainly beats viewing websites and reproductions.
Quality prints would have been fine for us but Ken Hurd offered many original works as well to give us a small, nagging headache before choosing one. This we did, returning to ‘Pen 35’ towards the end of the day and finding that we both really liked the same work. Phew.
You’ll find similar themes from Ken’s travels and observations along the Welsh coast on his website here. Our choice was already cropped by a board mount.
Below is the full spread of the original.
There seem to be more hints of neglect and dereliction here than in some other works but many of them still suggest the same isolation. Despite all that, there is Ken’s usual uplift of colour and a brightness escaping from gathering darkness. The ‘still-life’ of foreground rocks have even more luminosity than the moon which lights them. Yes, I’m staying poetic - I know that science says the sun is really doing that work! Artificial light from the building offers the reassurance of home and welcome. A haven from a slightly ‘untidy’ outside world perhaps.
Ken’s technique gives him the facility to produce a constant stream of works - almost up to Picasso’s endless variations on multiple themes. But we found honest interpretation of a scene and the mood it inspires in each of Ken’s examples. Ours was not a painful choice. I think we would have been pretty happy with almost any of the ones we have left for you to look at and consider for your own hanging space!
While the current pandemic prevails you can regularly update your chance to enjoy a face to face meeting with Ken in better times here.
‘Art In The Pen’ will let you know of their forthcoming plans here.
Neil Gaiman exhorts us all to ‘Make Good Art’. This is just one of a series of posts in my blog where I advocate that you also buy good art. Creativity deserves to be rewarded and fed.
Instagram link…