16th April 2022 - 13th May 2022

Emma Jeffryes - Walking Cornwall

We are delighted to showing Emma's latest collection for 2022 in a major solo exhibition.

“Walking the coast path is the most fantastic way to experience how diverse and truly stunning a county Cornwall is, with its myriad giant headlands, jagged rocks, huge boulders, steep ups and downs, secluded coves, luscious greenery, gentle wildflowers, and of course the mesmerising, ever-present sea. One of my favourite routes is up over moorland to Zennor Quoit which, in midsummer, is profuse with flowering gorse and heather amongst tall grasses – I’ve named this path ‘Cornish Purple and Gold’ - and there are paintings in this collection specifically derived from this walk, and others which are altogether breathtaking and have ignited a new direction in my painting.”

Emma Jeffryes, 2022


Emma’s new collection of paintings is inspired by a series of extended walks made over the last year, along the beautiful West Cornwall coast path. Having taken up walking during the pandemic, Emma describes this new passion as offering “a whole new world of discovery and observation, a fascination for exploring what is right on our doorstep”. As our freedom to roam has returned, she has ventured further out from her local lanes of Carbis Bay, walking large sections of the coast path from her beloved St. Ives, down the North Coast around to Lands End, and along the south coast to Porthcurno, Lamorna, Mousehole, Penzance, Marazion and Prussia Cove to Rinsey Head, recording her walks with sketches and notes in her travel journal. Moving beyond the purely representational, many of these works exhibit a new, experimental approach to composition and mark making, and even a drift towards a subtle form of abstraction, while others offer a more detailed study of forms such as spring flowers or Cornish succulents. Emma’s desire to resolve these conflicting ideas on canvas and to explore the natural progression of her painting, combined with her love of the Cornish landscape, emerges in this collection as progressive and diverse collection of new works.