Pembrokeshire does seem to be a magnet for many artists and most refer to the quality of light here as being a major factor in this. There does seem to be more light bouncing around off the sea and the sky. The beautiful sunsets are renowned.
I was aware of some wonderful art emanating from Pembrokeshire and as children we were admirers of the landscape paintings that Mum and Dad acquired over the years in our home in Cardiff, many of these being by Donald McIntyre who stayed at Llanunwas while working on field trips.
But there was one little print that caught my eye and, learning about art, this work struck me as something special. It was a scene from Morfa Common looking West towards Ramsey. It was not treated in any usual way, the colours were not those we would normally see here but it worked, it totally captured the wild magic of the Pembrokeshire coast and its mood.
Over the years I have seen more works by Peter Daniels and become a total fan. Peter clearly understood the importance of tone. I think he is one of the best at capturing light especially that rich evening or morning light. And once you get these values right you can play with the colours. Peter’s colour use is fabulous, and his experimenting with paint and surface, painting tools (anything to hand apparently) and print technologies provides works that are fascinating.
After a successful career in advertising and printing, Peter relocated to Pembrokeshire in the 1980s with his family and they settled in Nine Wells where he opened the Pink House Gallery.
I was very sad not to meet him personally but it is a great pleasure for me to know his family now and help them with print reproductions of his work. His daughter Rhiannon who lives in Solva has done an amazing job collating digital images of his works which we are now able to work from.
I find it particularly interesting to see works of landscapes and features close to our home at Llanunwas which Peter studied so intensely too. I got the impression he looked so hard! In his words:
‘There’s always something I’m trying to see that I can’t capture – it’s a constant journey, like chasing the Holy Grail – like Blake’s universe in a grain of sand
and from a write-up in the Western Telegraph:
‘The intensity of Peters work lets the landscape speak for itself. He does not look for what is pretty…but produces shapes, forms and colours of immense power…Constant in every picture is the sense of magic and timelessness of land that has remained the same for thousands of years’
Since working for the Forte restaurant chain Peter clearly enjoyed working on very large works and became internationally known for the power of his shapes, forms and colours. This culminated in a commission to cover 1600 square feet of wall space in Wyastone Concert Hall for Nimbus Records, a sound recording studio in Monmouthshire. Apparently Peter was greatly inspired to create the visuals to help the audience listen.
He was not able to complete the massive paintings as intended, Peter was diagnosed with inoperable spinal cancer which prevented him from painting as he wished. In his enterprising way Peter, unthwarted, turned to the technology of printing to enlarge the paintings that he could still manage. His devoted wife Elizabeth and a printer friend of theirs, together with the Trustees of Nimbus Records completed the full commission for Peter whom we lost in 1998. The magnificent paintings were unveiled during a celebratory concert with the English Symphony Orchestra in May 2003. This amazing story is told in a moving interview with Elizabeth here..
