Harbour House in Kingsbridge is the venue for Better Days: a diverse exhibition of paintings, printmaking and drawings connected by the friendship between four artists and their shared desire to communicate love of and concern for the natural world.

The exhibition opens at the south Devon art gallery on Tuesday 23 August and features recent works by Moira Baumbach, Allan Green, Sarah R Key and David Manley.

Moira explains that the group titled the show Better Days as “a defiant riposte to our turbulent times”.

Moira Baumbach’s concern for environmental issues has sustained an extensive printmaking project focused on endangered species of British birds.  Her approach is infused with an English Romantic sensibility with strong lines, muted colour and powerful forms.  She sees herself as an emerging artist and, having studied recently at Plymouth College of Art after a twenty year career in the Civil Service, she has now settled in Dorset.

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Sarah R Key, Our People are on a Journey, ink on paper, 36 x 51cm.jpg (Sara R Key)

Allan Green lived for over twenty years on the south Devon coast and is finding his new Dorset landscape surroundings equally rewarding, describing “a subtly different sense of place”. He is drawn to topographically strong viewpoints which he expresses through vigorous brushwork in oils.

Sarah R Key’s recent work is inspired by trips to both West Cornwall and the Western Isles of Scotland, combining drawing with a concern for global and environmental issues in work that has “at its centre an open ended questioning that allows the viewer space for interpretation.” Sarah is Senior Lecturer in Fine Art at Staffordshire University.

David Manley says, “I respond to external stimuli that is as much psychological as physical. I’d say my internal dialogue is as much to do with moods, sounds, smells, touch, and social history as my visual sense of place”.  For this exhibition he has created a series of small panel paintings depicting locations near and far. David was Professor of Art at the University of Derby until retirement.

The Better Days exhibition opens at Harbour House in Kingsbridge on Tuesday 23 August. Opening times will be 10 am – 5 pm Monday – Saturday and 11 am – 4 pm on Sundays. The show runs until Sunday 4 September. Admission is free.