REFLECTING ON THE ATLANTIC

If one geographical feature defines Britain more than any other it is the Atlantic Ocean - always both Britain’s fortress wall and its open road to the rest of the world - and with two notable Atlantic anniversaries in the air (25 years since the Falklands War, and 200 since the Royal Navy put down the Atlantic slave trade), the new exhibition at Artists Harbour Gallery in Portsmouth Historic Dockyard is Atlantic Reflections.

The exhibition is one of our strongest line-ups of fine paintings and photography, by artists and photographers from the southeast as well as the Midlands, Devon and elsewhere.

The works range from vast and empty oil-painted seas to the trawlers who bring in the nation’s fish, from paintings of naval tugs and yachts boiling the sea with their speed to some stunning photos:

• the mighty American warship USS New Jersey boiling the air with its fearsome broadside in a display of Atlantic alliance power, photographed in mid-ocean by an officer on HMS Invincible
• the Royal Navy warships of the South Atlantic Task Force sailing past the Falklands after freeing the islands from Argentine invasion in 1982
• arguably the best dolphin photo ever taken with no less than 17 of the fun-loving mammals surfing a single wave together off South Africa as the human surfers just watch
• from deep under the North Atlantic, ghostly images of the barnacle-encrusted engine cylinders, propellers and bows of the Titanic as she lies today on the sea bed

In other paintings, mountainous sea shores run down to wave-washed rock ledges, and sandy beaches give way to ocean liners painted by a naval architect who has worked on much of the Royal Navy’s current and future surface fleet.

The Atlantic Reflections exhibition is on show at Artists Harbour Gallery in Portsmouth Historic Dockyard until May 4. Admission to the gallery and the Historic Dockyard is free.

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Is this the best dolphin picture ever taken? We guarantee it is a genuine photo with no digital enhancing or addition of the dolphins … this is how it was! The shot was taken at 4:16pm on June 28, 2002, (thank goodness for digital cameras, they store all that sort of information!) on a Nikon D1X camera with a Nikkor 500mm f8 mirror lens.
The once-in-a-lifetime photograph of 17 dolphins muscling in on the humans during a professional surfing competition was taken by John Pauling, a South African surfing photographer … he’s been surfing since 1965, and has worked as a professional photographer since 1973 (all his adult career). It is published by us at Artists Harbour as a photograph on glossy paper and as a poster on matte art paper.

This is what John says about how he got lucky and took the best surfing shot of his career:

“It was taken at a well known surf spot just south of Durban called Cave Rock during a surf contest called the Rip Curl Tube Masters. It’s an annual event held there because of the big hollow waves that come through at that time of year.
I’ve been a professional photographer all my working life starting in 1973 and have been involved with surfing since about 1965 so I’ve learned a whole heap from the true “surfers”!
At this time of the year (May to July) the surf always picks up due to weather conditions (our winter) and along the Natal coast we have a unique situation with huge shoals of sardines migrating up the coast towards Mozambique. Of course bigger fish follow the sardines, game fish follow those fish and then the sharks and dolphins follow the game fish, the old who-eats-who story.
It’s fairly common to have dolphins in the waves with you while surfing, quite unnerving at times they come up next to you while you’re on the wave!
On this particular day, I saw the pod cruising in the backline behind the surfers and knew from experience that at some stage one or two of them would break off and join the guys in the surf.
So I was anticipating some action from them, but nothing like what they presented me with!
I’ve been shooting surf pictures for over 30 years all around South Africa but rate this as the best one I’ve ever been lucky enough to get!”

Available as a print only (460mm x 285mm) for £25 and mounted for £40. Also available as a poster on matte art paper (520mm x 300mm) for £15.

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In The Water & Shopping Night

March 7th ~ from 4:30pm - 8:30pm

• A 5% discount will apply to the artists’ original artwork and
  prints.
• A special 10% discount will apply on the purchase of all other full price items.
• At the moment we also have several exceptional value reduced priced items on sale in the gallery.

If you would like to join our invitation list for events such as these, please email us at info@artistsharbour.com with the first and last names plus addresses of all the people who would like to come. Please also give us an email address and phone number for each of these people in case of late changes to any events.
We do not give your personal details to any third party.

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