Paintings | Paul Mellor Fine Artist

THIS ENCHANTED ISLE

This more recent series of paintings are directly informed by personal memory (real or imagined) of family, childhood, education and places I have lived. Sources of reference include old photograph albums, postcards, scrapbooks and journals, maps, heirlooms and certificates etc.

In the grounds of Wentworth Woodhouse country house is the Waterloo Kiln which is all that remains of the site of the Rockingham Pottery. Wentworth Woodhouse has the longest façade of any private house in the country including Buckingham Palace and was owned by the Fitzwilliam family

Old sepia photograph from the 1030’s taken in a professional photography studio. Shows young and innocent brother and sister before WW11 turned both their lives upside down.

Edward and Joan

(2018) acrylic. 120x150cm

The country lane leading from Glaisdale Village to the high moor in the North Yorkshire Moors National Park. From a photograph taken on Boxing Day 1992. A large expressionist painting of an evening winter landscape with dry stone walls and isolated farm buildings.

Rigg Road

(2017) acrylic, pastel, sawdust and shellac. 180x120cm

Murder

(2017) acrylic. 150x120CM

The Druid’s Inn, Birchover, Derbyshire. An old drover’r road used for transporting sheep and other livestock.

After the Druids

(2016) acrylic. 150x120cm

Well Lane, Whiston, South Yorkshire, next door to the Golden Ball pub. Steps leading to St Mary Magdalene’s Church Whiston. A ghostlike figure of Leonard Cohen walks into the distance

Home

(2017) acrylic. 150x120cm

The source of this painting was an old photograph of Whiston Village in South Yorkshire. Possibly of VE Day (Victory in Europe) celebrations after WW1 or WW11

Imagined Albion

(2017) acrylic. 120x150cm

Urban decay in the 1980’s. Painting of Attercliffe Road between Rotherham and Sheffield with greasy spoon cafes. Poster for post punk band ‘Girls at our Best’

Girls at our Best

(2018) acrylic. 150x120cm

In the ground of Boston Castle, Rotherham, South Yorkshire. A bricked up ornate doorway using red sandstone

The Municipal Park

(2019) acrylic. 100x75cm

Bear Pit

(2019) acrylic. 100x75cm

Secret door in a walled garden guarded by a stone statue in the grounds of Wentworth Woodhouse, Rotherham, South Yorkshire

Green Door

(2019) acrylic. 90x60cm

Atmospheric autumn painting of Underhill in Glaisdale village in the North Yorkshire Moors. Expressionist in colour with an atmosphere of foreboding

Blasted

(2019) acrylic. 100x75cm

Fence

(2020) Acrylic 90x60cm

The bandstand in Clifton Park, Rotherham South Yorkshire, evoking memories of childhood

The Last Picture Show

(2019) Acrylic 90by60cm

A Field in France

(2020) Acrylic 100x75cm

The Last Post

(2020) Acrylic 100x75cm

EVIL IS BANAL

A small group of paintings that I occasionally return to for reasons unknown.

Love Nest

(2018/19) acrylic. 150x120cm

Ronnie and Reggie Kray were known as ‘The Firm’ and organized crime in the East End of London. The mixed with celebrities including Judy Garland, Barbara Windsor and Frank Sinatra. The film ‘The Krays’ starred Gary Kemp and Martin Kemp from Spandau Ballet.

Sunday Best

(2019) acrylic. 100x76cm

The Serbian Army led by Radimor Putnik retreating across the River Drina in 1915 ahead of the attacking German and Austro Hungarian armies. Thousands perished of exhaustion and hunger crossing the mountains into Albania. Known as The Great Retreat or the Albanian Golgotha.

The Accursed Mountains

(2016) acrylic and shellac. 150x120cm

Powis Square

(2016) acrylic. 150x120cm

Unheimlich

(2019) acrylic. 150x120cm

THAMES, SACRED RIVER

An ongoing series of paintings that reflect my long-term fascination (quite possible obsession) with the ‘Dirty Old River’. From its source at a natural spring in Gloucestershire, through Oxford and the city of London, to the estuary and onwards to the North Sea.

A constant ebb and flow that simultaneously also possesses a primitive quality of absolute stillness.
A mirror of liquid history described by William Blake as a ‘bar of gold’, but which for Joseph Conrad intimated a primeval heart of darkness.

Eel Pie Island in Twickenham is the largest Thames island. The Elle Pie Island Hotel was famous for very early concerts by the Rolling Stones, The Who, Rod Stewart, David Bowie, Genesis and Pink Floyd

The painting shows Tower Bridge, Tower of London, the ols ST. Katherine Docks, Tower Hamlets and the East End of London towards the Thames Estuary. Title taken fro The Kinks song ‘Waterloo Sunset

Source (2018) acrylic, sand and shellac TBC

Canvey Island in Essex was flooded in the great storm of 1953 with the loss of 58 lives. The 17th Century pub ‘The Lobster Pot’ is mentioned in Great Expectations by Charles Dickens.

The view from Richmond Hill towards Twickenham and Windsor is the first and only view protected by an Act of Parliament. Painted by artists including JMW Turner’s ‘Richmond Hill on the Prince Regent’s Birthday’ now in Tate Britain.

Mystic River

(2018) acrylic. 150x120cm

Dirty Old River

(2016) acrylic, sand, pastel and shellac. 150x120cm

Source

(2018) acrylic, sand and shellac 120x90cm

Revelation, after the deluge

(2017) acrylic, sand and shellac. 150x120cm

Richmond Hill rises from Richmond Bridge to Richmond Park and has been home to Sir John Mills, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Mick Jagger, Jerry Hall, Ronnie Wood and Sir Richard Attenborough.

Evening on the Terrace

(2018) acrylic. 150x120cm

Shadwell is downriver from Tower Bridge in Bermondsey. This is where JMW Turner painted ‘The Fighting Temeraire’. Samuel Pepes and Captain James Cook drank here, in the Angel Pub in Cherry Gardens.

Shad Beach

(2018) acrylic, sand and shellac. 150x120cm

St Paul’s Cathedral from the River Thames near Waterloo Bridge inspired the song ‘Waterloo Sunset’ by Ray Davies and the Kinks. The song also references Julie Christie and Terence Stamp. The painting references Edvard Munch and Edourd Manet.

Terry and Julie

(2016) acrylic. 150x120cm

Albert Bridge, Chelsea is next to Cheyne Walk, home to George Eliot, Dante Gabriel Rosetti and Keith Richards. Scenes fro the film ‘Performance’ directed by Nicolas Roeg starring Mick Jagger and James Fox where shot here.

Once upon a River

(2018) acrylic, sand and shellac 122x92cm

THIS PAINTING SHOWS ONE OF THE ORIGINAL PEDESTRIAN SHELTERS FROM THE OLD LONDON BRIDGE, DEMOLISHED IN 1831. Only four remain. Two in Victoria Park, Hackney, one in the grounds of Guy’s Hospital with a statue of John Keats and one in Courtlands Estate, East Sheen.

London Bridge is Falling Down

(2021) acrylic. 100x75cm

Reasons to be Cheerful

(2019) acrylic. 90x60cm

Memorial bench to Lee Brilleaux in Leigh on Sea, Essex. Lee Brilleaux was singer with the group Dr. Feelgood which he formed with Wilco Johnson. In 1976 Brilleaux helped found Stiff Records.

Lee’s Bench

(2019/20) acrylic. 90x60cm

A River Thames island near Kew Bridge and Strand on the Green, Chiswick. Carla Lane, Dylan Thomas and Nancy Mitford lived nearby, as did Donald Pleasance who played Blofeld in the James Bond film ‘You Only Live Twice’.

Oliver’s Island

(2020/21) acrylic 90x60cm

View towards Hammersmith Bridge from the Upper Mall and The Dove Hammersmith a 17th century pup where James Thomson wrote the words to ‘Rule Britannia’. William Morris and Gustav Holst also lived here.

After the Dove

(2019) acrylic, sand and shellac. 120x80cm

The obelisk at Teddington Lock marks the point where the Thames ceases to be a tidal river. In 1940 a huge flotilla of ‘small boats’ assembled here before the Dunkirk Evacuation.

Reach

(2019) Acrylic 90x60cm

Dying of the Light

(2020) acrylic, emulsion, pastel and shellac. 120x150cm

Where Thames Smooth Waters Glide

(2019) acrylic and shellac. 100x75cm

‘the backwards half look over the shoulder….’

‘The Dry Salvages’ T.S.Eliot

A series of canvasses that reference (both directly and tangentially) my lifelong passion for the history of painting.
Some works pay deliberate homage to individual artists or particular paintings, others may only bear oblique reference through their title, theme, detail or colour palette etc.
Other canvasses also allude to filmmakers and individual works that, to my mind, cite or directly reference contemporary painting and the canon of art history.