2 - 18 October 2025
Frances Hatch RWS: Meeting the Wind - Old Harry Rocks
Private View: Thursday 2 October 6 - 8 pm
Friday 3 October 10.30 am. Artist’s Talk by Frances Hatch: “Every Picture Tells a Story”. (Book here)
“Past the splendid Studland Village stores (with post office), I pause in Middle Beach where I rented a disused coastguard hut over several winters. Erosion has sucked away the very land the hut stood on. I know the passage of autumn to winter to spring in that place so well as a result of regular trips from Branksome on the 7am ferry from Sandbanks. Old Harry frames the open sea to the right and Bournemouth high rises frame to the left. I round the ferruginous Redend Point, crunch over quartz sands, clays and freshwater springs of South Beach, through the shelter of the tightly woven trees and along to the end of Old Nick’s Field, beyond the boundary of Studland Wood (the best place I know to collect vigorous wild garlic) and out into the openness of unbridled airs, sheer drops and curling tides.
It is there- near Old Harry, that I meet the wind.
In this exposed high place with light that has extra white in it.
The sun conjures the turquoises unique to chalk-infused water.
Turbulent seas kick up halos of ‘milk’ bloom in the sea around the rocks.
And it is that phenomenon that prompted me to explore (in the first decade of this millennium) how I too could work with suspensions of geological materials within watercolour washes. This has subsequently become core practice: holding the material of a place in suspension within the fabric of my work. This exhibition has grown out of the material palettes and varied experiences I’ve been privileged to share along the few miles of coastline between Studland village and Old Harry Rocks. I rejoice still every time I step on to South Beach to see what's going on, glimpse the green-blue shine out of sea- and those milky haloes in a storm. My hope is that something of the life of these places continues within the weave of the paintings. Do pop in to the gallery if you are near. I’ll tell more of the story of the work in the artist talk.”
A small selection from the exhibition appears below.
