Cscape Photographer Mick Blakey portrays the local coast and landscape with his atmospheric prints. Specialising in unusual angles, panoramics and slow exposures, his images capture the very essence of Cornwall, whether by richness of colour or the moodiness of black and white.
Mick was brought up in the Lake District, but after scaling down business interests in Devon, he now lives locally in Cornwall and shares a gallery, Cscape Art in Charlestown, with his artist wife, Sarah.
He likes to find places that are off the beaten track in the hope of capturing that elusive shot to add to his gallery collection. He plans to explore much more of the varied county of Cornwall over the coming months and years, including Bodmin Moor and the clay country, but will always have an affinity with the coast.
Artist Sarah Blakey lives and paints on the south coast of Cornwall. She spends many hours studying the working life of Cornish and Devonshire harbours and creeks as inspiration for her paintings of river and seascapes, boats and fishermen.
Passionate about local industries such as china clay and tin mining, she hopes that her portrayal of scenes from the mines will help to keep their memory alive. Although many such industries have either declined or gone altogether, she sees them as an integral part of the local culture.
Sarah paints in Chromacolour, a highly-pigmented, permanent and lightfast medium, first developed for colouring animation cells and adapted to a high-quality artists’ paint. The velvety matt finish gives her paintings the depth and vibrancy she seeks.
Her work is about bringing colour and interest to everyday scenes in order to capture the essence of working life on the rivers and seas and under the ground. She builds up layers of shapes as the painting progresses, the curve of a sea wall becoming the hull of a boat, the foot of a mine shaft becoming the shape of a miner's back.
Images are stripped of unnecessary detail, but always retain a strong design element, something which Sarah considers to be of utmost importance.