Discover ‘REFLECT’

‘REFLECT’ is a new body of work by Chelsea Davine that encompasses both meanings of the word: physical reflection and metaphorical reflection. Her paintings reflect her daily life from walking around Barcelona the beautiful Catalan city and its hills that surround it to the forests of the Pyrenees and the coastline of the ‘Costa Brava’. As she watches the Seasons change, she captures the beauty of the first snowfalls in Winter, the blossoms of Spring to the deep cadmium reds and burnt oranges of high Summer and Autumn’s sienna and golden browns. The pieces are primarily on canvas with oil and gold, silver and copper leaf or on black cold pressed steel. Thin washes or ‘velos’ are applied and suspend the leaf that reflects back the light from their surroundings. They glow and subtly change as the daylight changes. As Chelsea immerses herself in her studio surrounded by materials, sketches and photographs she takes time to reflect on her life bringing in her thoughts and memories as inspiration for her artwork. Her elegant artwork invites you to take time, pause and reflect."Every painting I begin, the layers and texture continue to fascinate me as does the process. My subject matter remains the same, the material itself, the coast, the sea, lines of desire that criss-cross the landscape, time and its corrosive effect on materials and finding the beauty in what we see around us. The world filters into my studio, colour, light, politics, religion, people. Conversations remain with me, maps mesmerize me, travel enthuses me. Creating and painting is an imperative I couldn’t live a day without.“

I have gallery representation in Spain and Holland through ‘Villa del Arte’, in London with ‘The Russell Gallery’ I have extensive experience working on both private and commercial commissions having created projects for Rachel Usher Interiors, Fenton Whelan, London, Icart Miami, Jotobitco Spain among others.

Please use the contact form if you wish to receive periodic updates of exhibitions and new work before they are available to the wider public, commissions, a studio visit in Barcelona. If you are interested in Master Art Classes in the studio then click through the link or send me an email.

Chelsea Davine

This portfolio shows a small selection of work available to buy from the studio or the various galleries that represent me. Please scroll to the bottom of the page and click on AVAILABLE WORK for a full selection. For further information please fill in the form in CONTACT and I will get back to you.

This collection of work represents some of my most emblematic paintings from various collections and exhibitions I've had over the past 8 years. They include a group collaboration Chiaroscturo, 'ARBORETUM:Art inspired', 'What lies Within', 'Where East meets West', 'Albion', 'Hunters - Harvest Moon', 'Come into the Light', 'Evidence of Life' 'Lines of Desire' and 'Shoreline'.

In each collection I hold an idea and try to capture the essence of that idea either on steel or canvas. As I explore each theme I aim to find an element that will resonate with the viewing public and that each piece has a harmony and balance to it.

I start with the base: primarily steel, copper or canvas. I like the texture of the surface to be smooth to the touch. I then layer fine, thin layers of oil or pour, dribbles of paint onto the surface and between each layer I suspend delicate gold, copper or silver leaf. I then scrape, crack or corrode and rub back the layers before applying a varnish. Then it's all about balance and light; How does the light shift and settle between the dappled leaves in autumn and spring? How does that pathway come into being across the landscape or through a glade? How do countries nestle next to each other creating philosophical tension and yet the rivers continue to flow through the landscape. The power of the swell on the shoreline in winter as the westerlies roll in to the benign beauty of a lapping waves in summer, shimmering and inviting.  The beauty of dawn and dusk, the warmth and promise of a new day and the dying of the one before to then be greeted by the rising full Harvest Moon in Autumn that glows almost too heavy for the sky to hold.

Installed artwork:

This collection shows a range of artwork and design at art fairs, on display in galleries and most importantly in clients' homes. Working on commission is an incredibly important part of my working practice. Seeing the final artwork installed is always a thrill. If you wish to discuss a similar project to any of the images below, please get in touch using the contact form in CONTACT ME.

My photographs seem secondary to my painting however they are a vital part of my visual diary.  This body of work has been built up from my travels and daily life. I look for and record both physically and keep in my mind sculptural elements, textures, juxtaposed interplays of colour and subject matter. I focus on composing a balanced image through the view finder without staging, using natural light, trying to capture a candid moment, detail or sculptural form. My iPhone overflows with visual references I come back to time and again in the studio. Once there the radio is a constant, music, lyrics and the energy live music has all filter into the work.

When I'm tucked away in the studio I spend a lot of time thinking, reflecting and remembering my 'outside' the studio experiences. As an art student I was profoundly influenced by the changing face of London, the Erasmus I completed in Valencia, working in the stone quarries in Portland, Dorset, and one particular trip to the former shipyard, Swan Hunter, in the north-east of England. I have a vivid memory of standing in the foundry, watching as formidable metals became malleable through intense pressure and heat.

"I can still feel the freezing cold, and recall the colour and intense heat of the furnace and the smell of molten metal"

It was a formative experience and I knew I wanted to bring out the intensity of colour, transformation and industrial process in my work. I wanted to "Make something beautiful and delicate out of something as uncompromising as steel, stone, copper or lead." 

However it is not the purity and permanence of the metal that interests me, but how it ages. The metal is my canvass on which I study the effect of time, water and oxygen - using it to corrode the protective oily skin that preserves the surface of steel, then scratching it to encourage rust. From this, layer by layer, I create three-dimensional abstracts - "paint sculptures" - where textures and colours merge and change with alterations in the light. The gold leaf is burnished, broken down and then brought back to life almost reborn as molten liquid images with a deep chiaroscuro creating rich colour scapes that change with the light.

I am also passionate about design both practical, interior and Industrial. I imagine interiors for my work, site specific murals in my mind. I love designing bespoke furniture especially reusing found objects which satisfies my desire to one day move back into sculpture as a main part of my practice.

I work and live in a city, Barcelona, and grew up in London before I moved to Lyme Regis in Dorset as a child. Whilst I crave the serenity of being by the sea with its ebb and flow of the tide and the passage of time, I equally love the energy and architecture of the city.

As well as recording visual sculptural details such as the connection between the helix of a staircase to an ammonite on Monmouth beach I’m also fascinated by the repetition of elements and Palladian’s theory of harmony in space.  Light, urban decay and renewal, nature’s constant reclaiming of abandoned spaces and I try to grasp the fleeting beauty in all of these aspects: the grey of the city and Blue Lias in Lyme through to the golden glow of a church in Barcelona. This is manifested in quickly-created sketches, studies on canvas or printed photos that I scatter on my table in the studio.

Sometimes the ideas can take years to become fully realised into a piece, distilling them down into the simplest representation. Copper, steel, canvas, paint, seawater, oil, gold, silver and copper leaf are my base materials. The canvas I use is either primed or un-primed. Steel with all its industrial and urban connotations once weathered becomes inert but equally beautiful. Copper when straight from the factory glows a deep red which I’m obsessed with recreating into sticky, sweet, highly glossed abstract paintings. Then the green/blue patina that forms over months of subtle treatment is redolent of the salty sea.

The Hunter’s Moon is still a primary source of fascination after all these years. Photography and Sculpture tie many of these elements together. The simple elegance of a B&W photograph is still the most satisfying photography of all. It is timeless and in my monochromatic paintings I try to realise the same feeling.

I've recently become fascinated by the technique of using Chiaroscuro from the Renaissance. The interplay and intensity of the use of light and dark such as in Caravaggio's work suits my way of working perfectly. I build up multiple layers of thin washes of oil paint and suspend gold, silver and copper leaf in between. Then using ageing varnishes I create darker areas that throw the lighter areas forward giving the sense of depth.

I studied sculpture at the old Hornsey Art College in North London, whose alumni include Richard Wilson, Richard Wentworth and Anish Kapoor. In her second year she completed a 3 month Erasmus sculpture programme at Valencia University.

I then moved to Barcelona shortly after completing my degree enthused by the light and cultural dynamism of the Catalan capital. After a break bringing up my children I returned to my practice and spent time designing bespoke furniture from steel and wood and working in Interior Design.

 In 2009 I was offered my first solo show with Tasneem Gallery in Barcelona and was able to move into a large studio next to Tapies' studio in the bohemian Gracia area of the city. My work grew in size and commissions for paintings became a fundamental part of my practice often working with local architects and International clients who walked past my studio.

I was delighted when I was awarded the Artist in Residence at The Boat Building Academy, Lyme Regis 2010/2012 a mutually beneficial working experience where the line between craft, sculpture and painting became further blurred for me. It allowed me to explore the themes of 'Shoreline' bringing the strands together of corrosion and using steel and sea water.

I have had a long standing relationship with the Russell Gallery in London with whom I’ve had four solo shows. I also continue to be represented by Villa del Arte both in Amsterdam & Barcelona where I have had 3 solo shows in Barcelona and two in Amsterdam. I have successfully shown at art fairs from Singapore to New York, London to Art Karlsruhe in Germany.

Sarah the founder of New Blood Art has said about my work ‘Since the beginning of time, anything with a heartbeat has looked up to the moon and pondered on that small spec; a luminous hole punched out of a nebulous canopy. As we evolved, we began to explore and even create, but we never shook our fascination with that pearly beacon: the moon. The magic of the moon and the sky has seized the mind of one particularly talented artist, Chelsea Davine. 

‘Autumn Dusk Moon,’ is a spine-tingling impression of the glowing orange-moon commonly sighted towards the end of the autumn equinox. The dramatic orangey hues coupled with Davine’s use of an overlay of varnished gold leaf, make her piece look so igneous you half expect it to combust before your very eyes. The moon in Davine’s depiction, is the kind of moon you envisage lit the sky during some of history’s great and private moments. 

Her piece, ‘Antes de Amanecer,’ almost seems like a continuation of ‘Autumn Dusk Moon.’ A reflection of an autumnal sky, Davine has considered not only the colours of the sky, but the colours of the traditional Harvest Festival. This piece gives you a slice of time, of tradition, of ancient values. For example, the vibrant orange prevalent in the piece is highly reminiscent of pumpkins and other root vegetables typically harvested at this time, and the red of the piece is incredibly similar to the strawberries that are picked from the fruit fields during this season. The darts of gold dappled over the surface of the piece reflects the colour of the traditional ‘Corn Doll,’ a descendent of the Goddess, Ceres. Davine’s work does not seek to simply capture an image, but to create an impression of a moment in to time, to bottle an essence and release it onto a canvas. 

The work of Chelsea Davine is rich both in colour and content, and her work is one of those rare cases in which the longer you look, the more you find…’

The art critic Alex Bahna-Philips notes, Chelsea's inspiration is the small, often unnoticed details which make up everyday life: "Chimney smoke, burnished gold, patterns under peeling paint, broken stairs leading nowhere, the ravages of time etched onto metal, a pathway through an arid landscape…"

Since moving to Barcelona with her family in 1998, Chelsea's work has also been deeply influenced by the light and colour of Spain. 

"In London, I used concrete and grey; in Barcelona I use steel, red and gold" , she says.

With her roots in sculpture and her fascination with the passage of time and the relationship between objects and their environment, Chelsea's work fits into the tradition Eduardo Chillida and Andy Goldsworthy, whose work plays on the temporality of nature with the large abstract expressionism of Rothko and his colour fields.

Sarah Russell-Walling, owner of the Russell Gallery, which represents Chelsea in London says: 

"Chelsea's work has an immediate appeal and a very direct visual impact coupled with an international flavour."

Tasneem Salam believes that it is precisely her ability to celebrate the mundane along with the vibrancy of Chelsea's palette and the richness of her texturing that underpins the unique allure of her work. She explains: 

"Chelsea's work, with its wonderful juxtaposition of texture and colour, is an affirmation of the beauty of life, if we know how to look for it."

Testimonial: I hope you are doing well. I am delighted to share ‘El Bosque Nevado’ installed. It is absolutely breathtaking, Simple yet elegant. The layers and textures of the painting change with the angle of light, incredible. What was once a blank canvas is now a stunning dining room…please share these amazing photos with Chelsea without her amazing talent, I would have missed the beauty which I have recieved’

CV

1971 Born London

1991-92 Foundation Chelsea School of Art, London

1992-95 Fine art degree Middlesex University, London (Including 3 months Erasmus at Valencia University)

2004 Solo photographic exhibition and founded 5 in a box artists' cooperative

2006 Founded Milk interiors/design studio and gallery, Barcelona.

2008 Solo painting, sculpture, photographic exhibition C/Mallorca, Barcelona

2009

Solo Show, Evidence of Life, Tasneem Gallery

EuropArt Fair, Geneva with Tasneem Gallery

Affordable Art Fair, London with Russell Gallery (22-25 October)

Exhibited Abstracted - Distracted (Collective Exhibition), Barcelona with Tasneem Gallery (22 October - 14 November)

Mixed Christmas Exhibition, London with Russell Gallery (3 December - 23 January)

2010

Artist in Residence at The Boat Building Academy, Lyme Regis 2010/2012

20/21st Royal College of Art (16-21 February )

ARTSFEST Lyme Regis at The Boat Building Academy (15-22 September)

AAF Battersea, London (21-25 October)

2011 Solo Show, Russell gallery

Open studio, Lyme Regis (24 August - 4 September)

AAF Battersea,

AAF Hampstead Russell Gallery

2012

'Coast' Group Show, Malthouse, Lyme Regis (30 December - 9 January)

Women in Art 2012, The Gallery at MOA Miami with Crisolart Gallery, Barcelona (9 March)

2013

Solo Show, Russell Gallery, London April

Spring AAF Amsterdam, AAF Milan, Villa del Arte Galleries

'Albion', group exhibition Cock 'n' Bull gallery, Shoreditch, London (7-14 April)

'Come into the Light' Solo Show, Russell Gallery, London (4-21 July)

Shed Gallery Summer group show, Lyme Regis, Dorset, England (21 August - 6 September)

Autumn AAF Battersea Russell Gallery, London,

AFF New York, Seattle, Stockholm, Singapore Villa del Arte gallery, Barcelona, Spain

2014

AAF Brussels , Villa Del Arte (7-9 February)

Palm Beach , Villa Del Arte (14-18 February)

AAF Milan , Villa Del Arte (6-9 March)

AAF Hong Kong , Villa Del Arte (21-23 March)

AAF Maastricht , Villa Del Arte (2-6 April)

Chelsea Art Fair , Russell Gallery(10-13 April)

AAF Brussels , Villa Del Arte (24-28 April)

'Tallers Oberts' (Open Studios) in Barcelona, Calle Carolinas (3-4 May)

AAF Toronto, Villa Del Arte (7-11 May)

Art Fair at the RCA (20-21 May) Russell Gallery (15-18 May)

20/21 International Art Fair Russell Gallery (17-18 May)

AAF Singapore, Villa Del Arte (21-25 May)

AAF Battersea Russell Gallery (22-25 Oct)

AAF Stockholm (1-4 Nov)

Sleep Design event with Go Figurative Gallery

2015

Winter Collective, Russell gallery 2014/2015

AAF Brussels, Villa Del Arte (6-9 Feb)

ART Karlsruhe (5-8 March) Villa Del Arte

'Open Studio' March 18th Barcelona

'Broadchurch', West Bay, Shed Gallery (29 April-1 May)

Chelsea Art Fair, Russell Gallery (16-19 April)

20/21 International Art Fair Russell Gallery (14-17 May)

AAf Hampstead, Villa Del Arte, (11-14 Jun)

Open Studio, Lyme Regis, August 1-31 August

Summer Collective July/August Russell Gallery

AAF Battersea (22-25 Oct)

AAF Amsterdam Kromhouthal with Villa Del Arte (29 October-1 November)

2016

Affordable Art Fair Hong Kong, Villa Del Arte (May 13-15th)

Affordable Art Fair Hampstead, Villa del Arte (June 16-19)

'Instant' Group Photographic and Painting exhibition, Lyme Regis (August 18th - 1st September)

Affordable Art Fair Battersea, Russell Gallery (October 20-23)

2017

Solo Show 'FLOW' 6th March - 1st April, The Russell Gallery, London.

Affordable Art Fair New York, Villa del Arte Gallery (31st March - 4th April)

Affordable Art Fair Hampstead, London, Russell Gallery (11th - 14th May)

Donostiartean Art Fair, San Sebastian, Galería Gaudí, (20th - 23rd July)

Bazaar Art Jakarta, Indonesia, Villa del Arte Gallery (27th July - 2nd August)

Art Stage Jakarta, Indonesia, Villa del Arte Gallery (11th August - 13th August)

'Reflecting the Light' Solo show, Courtyard Gallery, Lyme Regis, (17th August - 5th September)

Berlin Liste, Berlin, Germany, Galería Gaudi, (15th - 17th September)

AAF Stockholm, Sweden, Nordic, Art Agency, (12th - 15th October)

AAF Battersea, London, The Russell gallery, (19th - 22nd October)

2018

Group show Pop-Up Malmo, Sweden, Nordic Art Agency, (1st - 21st March)

The Other Art Fair, Saatchi Art, (20th - 22nd March)

'Rooms' Green Gallery, Scotland, (18th - 25th March)

Affordable Art Fair, New York, Villa Del Arte Gallery, Barcelona (22nd - 25th March)

Nordic Art Fair, Copenhagen, (20th -22nd April) Nordic Art Agency

Affordable Art Fair Hampstead, London, (10th -13th May) The Russell Gallery

Stories from the City - Stories from the Sea, Solo Show, (28th June - 11th July) Malthouse Gallery, Lyme Regis

Artist Exposé - Nordic Art Agency, Malmó, Sweden, (6th - September to 6th October)

START Art Fair - SAATCHI GALLERY - London (12th - 16th September) Eclectic Gallery Stand 11.3

Affordable Art Fair Battersea, London (18th - 21st October) The Russell gallery

2019

Solo Show 60 Threadneedle Street, (31st January - 15th May) London

‘CHIAROSCURO’ SOLO Show - (21st February - 9th May) The Russell Gallery, London

SITGES Feria de Arte (6th - 8th April) Artist led Fair

Affordable Art Fair New York (28th - 31st March) Villa del Arte Gallery

Affordable Art Fair London, Hampstead (9th - 12th May) The Russell Gallery.

SOLO show The Malthouse Gallery, Lyme Regis, Dorset (27th June - 10th July)

‘BARCELONA COLLECTION’ SOLO Show Nordic Art Agency, Sweden, (29th August - 8th October)

Affordable Art Fair Stockholm, (10th - 13th October) Nordic Art Agency

Affordable Art Fair Battersea, (17th - 20th October) The Russell Gallery

2021

SOLO SHOW Stora Nygatan 50-56, 211 37 Malmö (May 2nd - June 30th) through the Nordic Art Agency

SOLO SHOW Villa del Arte Gallery, C/Tapineria GOLDENHOUR 15TH JULY -15TH AUGUST.

Affordable Art Fair Stockholm, (10th - 13th October) Nordic Art Agency

2022

SOLO SHOW The Russell Gallery, London. 31st March - 23rd of April

Spring Showcase SOLO SHOW C/La Palla, Barcelona 1st April 15th May

Group Show at NAA at Stora Nygatan, Malmö 1st April - June 24th.

Affordable Art Fair Hampstead 4th May - 8th May through the Russell Gallery.

No Line on the Horizon, Solo Show, 5th - 11th Malthouse Gallery, Lyme Regis, UK.

2023

SOLO SHOW Villa del Arte, Amsterdam 1st January - 30th January

ART KARLSRUHE Germany, May 3rd - 6th

SOLO SHOW Villa del Arte, Amsterdam 4th September - 4th October

SOLO SHOW Villa del Arte, Barcelona September 23rd - 14th October