Delia Tournay-Godfrey

Delia Tournay-Godfrey

Reviewing the 2013 Royal Academy Summer Show for The Spectator magazine, author and critic Andrew Lambirth used binoculars to scan the ‘skied’ paintings hung in the Lecture Room above the spectators’ eyeline. He picked out a work by Delia Tournay-Godfrey: a small oil painting of Aldeburgh which, he felt, ‘was refreshingly empty’. For Delia, this was a satisfyingly precise response to her work from someone who knows about painting.

Born in Ipswich, Delia came to painting in the early 1990s as a young wife and mother with a strong attraction to art and a hunger to learn. Her enrolment on the new degree course in Art and Design at Suffolk College led to her working with Ken Back, an artist and teacher known for his uncompromising focus on a hard-won, personal approach to drawing and painting based on deep observation. In Ken, Delia found her mentor and continued tutorials with him for several years after her graduation in 1996. Although Ken sadly died in 2002, his presence remains with Delia ‘telling me to listen to my inner feelings…remain true to yourself. Avoid the easy solution, slick brushwork, repeating yourself.’

Since the early 2000s, Delia’s work has been shown in group as well as solo exhibitions in local, national and international settings. Looking and drawing are fundamental to Delia’s practice; her unique way of seeing through drawing is deeply felt yet always rigorously structured. Her numerous sketchbooks have long been the genesis of some of her larger paintings and are replete with closely observed pencil and watercolour sketches of people and places, references to artists and detailed written observations.

Empty and Full Spaces marks Delia’s third solo showing at Chappel Galleries, following Figures in the Landscape in 2008 and Strangers on a Shore in 2018. In this latest exhibition, Delia continues to find new ways of expressing shades of ambience through her painting. For instance, the brushwork in East Cliff (2019) has dark coils resembling parts of rough concentric circles that are completely believable as massive trees looming over the tiny figure. In contrast, Sea Time (2019), a studio work grown from a much smaller oil painted from life at Delia’s beach hut, depicts immense areas of sky and sea. These are flat, with slight variations of tone. The figure is miniscule, yet visitors to Delia’s studio were attracted to this painting with its big, blue, seemingly depthless spaces.

There are further variations in Delia’s rendition of place and space in the paintings from her travels in France and Bavaria such as House in the Hills I, House in the Hills II (2018) and Mountain Storm (2019). Although the paintings are carefully observed from life, they are also informed by Delia’s exhaustive sketchbook work which forms part of her response when painting.

The current exhibition also features paintings made during the pandemic lockdowns of 2020-21. Initially prevented from working directly from figure and landscape, Delia gained fresh insight from her sketchbooks in her studio. Eight evocative small paintings including Distant Sea, Sea Dreaming and Sea Air (2020), all with a theme of women standing near railed or fenced boundaries between themselves and the sea, came out of this process.

The ‘snow paintings’ such as Winter Walk and Winter Solitude (2022) are also studio works, not from sketchbooks or from life (although she has drawn and painted in freezing cold conditions) but from vivid imprints on Delia’s visual and tactile memories of frequent walks in heavy snow over Rushmere Heath, Ipswich in February 2021. She was intrigued by the feelings the snow brought to the space around her:

‘it became like the sea and sky, and the large empty spaces I had been using in my previous work. The snow was dense sometimes and moving, fluttering or heavy and blinding...the trees were a mass of tone almost disappearing, and the people were strong little beings struggling against it or just enjoying being in it.’

The ‘moon paintings’ are recent studio works, with more to come. Delia had a longstanding desire to paint the moon but was frustrated by lack of daylight conditions for working from life. She has tried taking photos of the moon on her mobile phone for reference but uses them only as an aide-mémoire, a quick glance to recharge her visual and spatial memory before starting to paint. Wolf Moon Rising (Jan 2022), for example:

‘was from the car window on a journey to Felixstowe: Craig (Delia’s husband) was driving and we were chatting, and I was gazing out of the window fascinated with the large pale moon that was rising in the dusky sky as we whizzed along. I decided there and then that I would paint it in my studio from memory the very next day. I looked for as long as possible taking mental notes of the colours and tones, and the proportions of the landscape in relation to the moon. I felt a sense of urgency about getting these memories and ideas down, and did a small painting the very next day, and then continued working on the larger one, Wolf Moon Rising from the small one, surprising myself at how exciting and alive it felt even though the subject was not in front of me, not even a sketch! A new project had begun and is ongoing.’

Indeed, to return to Andrew Lambirth’s brief but telling comment, the spaces depicted in Delia’s paintings may often appear ‘empty’ but they are fresh, alive with mood and atmosphere and above all, with paint.

Dr. Pat Hurrell, August 2022
Lecturer in Contextual Studies (Photography, Art, Graphic Design)
University of Suffolk

Delia Tournay-Godfrey

1997 - 2002 Mentor - Ken Back

1993 - 1996 BA (Hons) Art & Design, Suffolk College (UEA)

1987 - 1989 Certificate in Adult Education

Solo Exhibitions

2000 ‘04 Graham & Oldham Artists’ Gallery, Ipswich, Suffolk

2000 ‘01 ‘02 ’04 ‘22 Aldeburgh Gallery, Aldeburgh, Suffolk

2002 Pond Gallery, Snape, Suffolk

2006 ‘14 Snape Maltings Gallery, Snape, Suffolk

2007 ‘11 Buckenham Galleries, Southwold, Suffolk

2008 Figures in the Landscape - Chappel Galleries, Chappel, Essex

2009 ‘10 Assembly House, Norwich, Norfolk

2009 ‘10 ’14 ‘16 Cinema Gallery, Aldeburgh

2018 Strangers on a Shore - Chappel Galleries

Joint Exhibitions

2007 Play, Place & People - Strand Gallery, Aldeburgh

2009 Looking Out - Strand Gallery

2009 Three Painters - Halesworth Gallery, Halesworth, Suffolk

2020 From Life - Artspace, Woodbridge, Suffolk

2021 Spring Exhibition - Chappel Galleries

Group Exhibitions

1994 - 1996 Annual Drawing Exhibition - Forefront Gallery, Suffolk College, Ipswich

1996 The Summer Show - John Russell Gallery, Ipswich

2001 Landscapes of East Anglia - The John Innes Centre, Norwich

2001 - 2002 Haste Gallery - Ipswich

2003 - 2005 Wingfield Arts - Wingfield, Suffolk

2003 - 2019 Snape Maltings Gallery

2005 The Artist’s Eye - Buckenham Galleries

2006 Here’s Looking at You - Town Hall Galleries, Ipswich

2006 ’08 ’13 ’15 ’17 ‘19 From the Model - Various Galleries, Suffolk

2006 ’08 ’10 ’11 ’14 ’15 ’17 ‘18 NEAC Annual Open Exhibition - Mall Galleries, London

2006 ’07 ’08 ’10 ’11 ’14 ’15 ’16 ’17 ’19 Discerning Eye - Mall Galleries, London

2008 - 2022 Ipswich Art Society Open Exhibition - Ipswich

2009 - 2017 Not the Royal Academy - Llewellyn Alexander Gallery, London

2009 ’10 ’18 ’19 ’20 ‘21 Mixed Exhibitions - Chappel Galleries, Essex

2010 Fairhurst Gallery, Norwich

2010 Art at the Park - Croxton, Norfolk

2010 Art & Sculpture - Glemham Hall, Little Glemham, Suffolk

2011 South Lookout as Muse - Caroline Wiseman Modern & Contemporary, London

2011 - 2020 D’Arcy Fine Art - Manningtree, Essex

2011 - 2016 Josephine Harpur - East Anglia

2011 - 2014 Brighton Art Fair - Brighton, East Sussex

2012 ’16 ’17 ‘20 Really Affordable Art - Belinda Taylor Art, London

2010 - 2022 Cork Brick Gallery, Bungay, Suffolk

2013 Summer Exhibition - MoncrieffBray Gallery, Petworth, West Sussex

2013 20/21 International Art Fair - RCA, London

2013 ‘16 RA Summer Exhibition - Royal Academy, London

2014 - 2022 MF Gallery, Ipswich

2014 - 2016 Cobbold & Judd Fine Art - East Anglia

2014 - 2015 Lynne Strover Gallery - Fen Ditton, Cambridgeshire

2014 - 2016 Chapel Place Gallery - Tunbridge Wells, Kent

2016 Lynn Painter Stainers Prize - Mall Galleries, London, & Guildford House, Surrey

2017 Contemporary Art Fairs, Reading & Windsor, Hertfordshire

2017 Contemporary Masters from Britain - The Cut, Halesworth, Suffolk

2017 - 2020 Buy Art/Buy Now Online Art Gallery, Mall Galleries, London

2017 - 2018 Contemporary Masters from Britain - Tour of four Art Museums, China

2019 - 2020 Summer & Winter Collectives - The Aldeburgh Gallery, Aldeburgh, Suffolk

2019 - 2021 Cotswold Contemporary - Cirencester, Gloucestershire

2019 ’20 ‘21 Mixed Shows - ArtDog, London

2018 - 2021 Mixed Shows - Artspace, Woodbridge

2020 Affordable Art Fair - ArtDog London, Battersea, London

2020 ArtEast - Framsden Barn, Framsden, Suffolk

2021 - 2022 Singulart - Online Art Gallery

2021 ‘22 Royal Society of British Artists Open Exhibition - Mall Galleries, London

Experience

1990 - 2000 Part-time lecturer in adult education - Suffolk College

1996 - 2004 Illustration work - Suffolk County & Suffolk Coastal District Councils

2003 ’05 Artist in Residence - Ipswich Transport Museum & Ancient House, Ipswich

2003 - 2010 Suffolk Open Studios - Member & committee member

2004 - 2022 Commissioned paintings

2005 - 2022 Organises regular life drawing for artists

2006 - 2022 Bespoke framing service for galleries and artists

2007 - 2008 Drawing Workshops - St Albans High School, Ipswich

2011 - 2015 Gallery Assistant - Strand Gallery, Aldeburgh

2012 ‘18 Selector for Ipswich Art Society Annual Open Exhibitions

2012 - 2022 Ipswich Art Society - Member

2015 - 2022 Picture hanging service for public & private collections

2017 ‘18 Candidate for membership of the New English Art Club

Collections

UCS East Contemporary Art

Priseman Seabrook 21st Century British

Painting

Yantai Art Museum, China

Ipswich & Colchester Museums

Prizes

Lincoln Seligman Purchase Prize - ING

Discerning Eye 2015