Scroby Sands & Aphrodite Reborn are now exclusively available through curators Contemporary & Country.
Both paintings were exhibited in A World of Water at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Art in Norwich, March – October 2025, a critically acclaimed exhibition, curated by John Ken Paranada, the country’s first Climate Curator.
Scroby Sands: A diptych of a swirling stylised wave blocking the horizon, which can ben seen either side of its peak. Resting there is the wind farm at Scroby Sands off the Great Yarmouth coast, a place I know well, as I was born there. One of the turbines of the wind farm caught fire in 2023 which is the incident I have painted using reportage images as reference, giving the painting a defined sense of place. The painting speaks of the duality of the sea; its natural phenomenon, pulse and life, which operates in proximity to its industrialisation, and the irony of a wind turbine made for giving clean energy, sending smoke plumes into the atmosphere. The use of two canvases to make the work is a direct reference to duality of meaning.
Aphrodite Reborn: A glossy heaving wave, peppered with coral weed, and cast with a shadow seemingly hold a hand out offering it up. This painting was made in direct reference to my own experience, swimming in the sea is a great passion of mine and I like to take photos of the waves, usually with a waterproof camera. Sometimes, when the sun is bright I catch my own shadow in the photos, and I see this as a perfect melding of myself with the sea, with nature, as Aphrodite who was born from sea foam.
Both paintings are professionally framed in black bevelled 15cm frames, made to echo Dutch master paintings from the 16 – 17C, which were also part of A World of Water. The dark frames seek to receed and illuminate the paintings out.
Please contact me for any further photos of the frames, detail images, information about the creative process surrounding these two works, their exhibition history etc.
The paintings are £3000 each.
Please contact paulvater@contemporaryandcountry.com