The artist Fran Gynn and a group of musicians have created a series of paintings accompanied by new musical interpretations to remember the coastal village of Hallsands. The village was destroyed due to ignorance of the environmental impact when developing Plymouth Docks. Hallsands was a village which dated from the 16th century and by the late 19th century had thirty seven houses, a pub, a chapel, a reading room and a population of 159, nearly all working in the fishing industry, mainly catching crabs. Dredging of shingle, over 160,000 tons was removed, led to the demise, in 1917, of the village as the ocean caused chaos and destruction. As I looked at the pictures I was acutely aware of the current possible man-made disaster of climate change.
Fran had used material from the lost village as her motivation and particularly the nets left by the villagers. The abandoned, broken nets are known as 'ghost nets' and are a poignant reminder of the abandoned and broken village. Many of Fran's pieces of work relate to and interpret the impact of these 'ghost nets.'
Her work has a beauty, depth and sorrow in them which caught my attention and engaged me as very few pieces of art are able to do. In her catalogue Fran states "The work allowed me to study the transformation and the inherent beauty in that ceaseless, timeless process: transformation of objects by nature and man and the beauty found in that transformation." She certainly does that. The exhibition concludes on Saturday 16th September but the pictures and music are available at hallsandsart.co.uk or more work by Fran at frangynn.com
This is one of her pieces of work - monotype with ink, named stormfront. Fabulou
Brilliant review :) Glad to see someone with an appreciation for visual art