Friends of the late Milford on Sea artist Bruce Connell are organising a retrospective exhibition of his paintings in the village Community Centre to celebrate his life and talent.
Bruce specialised in sculpture in art school in the sixties and though he always loved to sketch came to painting relatively late in life when he moved to Milford and found inspiration in the local coastline.
He captured the colour and variety of beach-life in works exhibited with Milford Art Group, of which he was, for a time, a member, and at several one-man shows in Lymington, Highcliffe Castle and the Milford Community Centre.
But Bruce refused to follow the commercial route of working in the same ‘photographic’ images and developed an equally popular ‘comic book style’ adapting landscapes here in Hampshire, Devon and in Brittany where he and his wife Carolyn recently spent a large part of their summers.
The couple met through their involvement with the annual Milford-on-Sea Art and Music Festival for which Bruce used to organise the novel ‘mosaic’ backdrop for the main stage on the village green. Locals, the talented and not-so talented, painted small sections of a picture on individual canvases finally hung together to reveal the completed design on the festival weekend.
The exhibition is entitled Bruce Connell R.I.P. - Remembered In Pictures. He was working on sketches for a French commission until days before his admission to Rowcroft Hospice in Torquay in May. Proceeds from his picture sales will be donated to hospice funds.
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The exhibition will be open to the public from 2pm to 4pm on Sunday 23rd July 2017, and from 10am to 4pm on Monday 24th July 2017.
More of Bruce's work can be seen on his memorial website: www.bruceconnell.co.uk
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