Thompson’s Gallery Harpenden is very excited to have recently acquired further paintings by Yorkshire born artist Robert E. Wells. Robert, well known for his landscape and figurative paintings, tends to focus on the ordinary, capturing moments of everyday life and rainy cityscapes. A scene of a family sitting down to tea, a family on a beach or a girl reading a book.
His use of restrained tones along with the style of the rooms, or the men’s braces and dark ties, are reminiscent of ‘chamber piece’ movies of the late 1940’s and early ‘50s. But Wells' paintings are far from being mundane; his use of one or two vibrant colours within the scene of each painting lifts the tone and adds warmth, and the contrast provides the viewer with an insight beyond the dull of ordinary life and connects with the subject. ‘In the Evening’ is a case in point, where the artist’s impasto technique and splash of red in the lightshade, picks out other points of red on the paintings surface and within its texture. There is more colour in this painting than a first glance reveals.
Wells is a member of the New English Art Club and the Royal Society of British Artists.
