Chappel Galleries
Contemporary Fine Art
Established 1986
T: +44 (0) 1206 240326
E: info@chappelgalleries.co.uk
Chappel Galleries
Contemporary Fine Art
Established 1986
T: +44 (0) 1206 240326
E: info@chappelgalleries.co.uk
Wednesday to Sunday 10am to 5pm or by appointment
Sizes quoted are of artworks. Where enquiries of prices are made on the gallery, the work is subject to availability and the price to change.
475 Fulham Road, London SW6 1HL
020 7381 3031
piersfeethamgallery@hotmail.com
Piers Feetham Gallery normal open hours Tuesday to Friday 10-6; Saturday 10-1
Tube: Fulham Broadway; Buses 14, 414 & 211
Daytime Parking: Pay and Display in local streets or underground in the Chelsea Football Ground directly opposite the gallery.
Evening Parking: All local parking is ‘Residents Only’ between 6.30 and 8pm and a towaway policy is enforced. Please use the underground carpark.
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Władysław Mirecki or Waj to his friends, was born to Polish parents in Chelmsford in 1956. He paints mostly Essex landscapes. In fact, he paints things that people who favour certain types of installation art probably wouldn't think of as cutting- edge. People who know the beauty of Essex and the wider East Anglian countryside, however, will recognise the quality of Mirecki's defiantly coherent work. It sells, of course.
Waj, a completely self-taught artist, has never not painted. When he says: “I never went to art school,” the statement carries an air of mystification, almost as if he were talking about a strange club in some distant city of which he'd heard, yet had never felt the urge to visit. Despite being regarded as 'good at art', instead he gained a science degree, later moving on to industrial design in London. Terribly unhappy there, after a while, whilst still in his twenties, he fled the metropolis in order to “take up the brush.” Returning to Essex in the 1980s, he became a labourer, laying tracks for the Chappel Railway Museum and settling down there to paint the landscape.
For here were the rolling contours of the West Colne Valley. The place has everything a traditional English landscaper might desire: a winding river and acres of fecund farmland with tree-lined country lanes, all straddled by a stunning Victorian railway viaduct. For over three decades the artist has followed the changing seasons with the persistence of a particularly obsessive stalker. From the buttercupped spring meadows, into the deep green hollow-ways of summer woodland,he takes us back out, to the glacier-mint light of winter fields. His landscapes are nearly all un-peopled. Waj will tell you that this is because the countryside nowadays is mostly empty. He wanted to paint his immediate locale and reckons it took him a decade before his work began to do the landscape justice. His paintings are realistic, although un-blighted by any sterile photographic quality. The artist doesn't over-idealise his subjects. Where, for instance, a road encroaches upon one of his landscapes, he includes its markings and yellow lines. In years to come, such things will tell the viewer as much about the countryside in the early 21st century as a Constable painting does about the early 19th. The influences of John Constable and John Atkinson Grimshaw, remain present in Waj Mirecki's work, like two wardens patrolling a deserted country park.
Of recent years, Waj has taken to occasional studies of urban or industrial sites. These places with their wire and concrete, sometimes take on a wildness of their own. They seem even more alien for providing within their structure the only evidence of the people who built them. In more recent years, the artist has painted on the coast:not only the pretty dunes and houseboats of coastal Suffolk, but Clacton, a rugged old Essex seaside resort perched on the fleece of the cold North Sea.
Władysław Mirecki's work frequently concerns itself with sites once used for work. It successfully conveys the eerie beauty of such places, long after their labourers have gone and nature has taken over. The great secret here, however, is that Mirecki's seemingly unpopulated paintings are nothing of the sort. Because you, the viewer are always included in them. And the artist is standing right there beside you.
by Martin Newell
1956 Born Chelmsford, Essex of Polish parents. He is self-taught, having painted all his life including periods gaining his science degree at Kingston Polytechnic, London (1975-78); as an industrial designer and co-proprietor of Chappel Galleries (1986 – ).
1988 New English Art Club, Mall Galleries, London
1989 Epping Forest District Museum “Artists in Essex”
1989 Beecroft Art Gallery, Westcliffe on Sea, Essex 31st Open Exhibition
1990 Chappel Galleries, Essex Solo Exhibition
1991 Foyles Art Gallery, London
1992 Department of Transport Art Competition, Mall Galleries, London
1992 Deuxieme Salon Biennale de L’Aquarelle, Hirson, France (Chelmsford 1993)
1996 Chappel Galleries, Essex10th Anniversary Exhibition: Solo Exhibition
1997 Singer and Friedlander, Sunday Times Exhibition, London
1997 Beecroft Art Gallery, Essex: Open Exhibition
1998 Chappel Galleries, Essex: Solo Exhibition
1999 Jiangsu Provincial Art Gallery, Nanjing, China: Solo Exhibition
1999 Chappel Galleries, Essex Solo Exhibition
2002 Chappel Galleries, Essex Blyth Spirit “Walberswick Artists 1880-2000
2003 Chappel Galleries, Essex: Solo Exhibition
2003 WH Pattersons, London Christmas Mixed Exhibition
2004 Royal Academy, London Summer Exhibition
2004 WH Pattersons, London Christmas Mixed Exhibition
2004 Dove’s Barn, Suffolk
2006 Chappel Galleries, Essex: Solo Exhibition
2007 Royal Watercolour Society Open Competition, Bankside Gallery, London
2007 Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours, Mall Galleries, London
2007 Royal Society of British Artists Annual Exhibition Mall Galleries, London: Winner of the Edward Wesson Award.
2007 Beecroft Art Gallery, Westcliffe on Sea, Essex 49th Essex Open Exhibition: Awarded Prize and Shirley Robson Bowl for the best watercolour
2007 Chappel Galleries, Essex ‘Southwold, the East Coast’
2007 Sunday Times/Kaupthing Singer & Friedlander Watercolour Competition, The Mall Galleries, London: 3rd Prize Winner
2007 Lynn Painter-Stainers, London
2007 Chichester Open Art Exhibition, Chichester
2007 Royal West of England Academy 155th Autumn Exhibition, Bristol
2007 New English Art Club, The Mall Galleries, London
2008 RWS/Sunday Times Watercolour Competition, Bankside Gallery, London
2008 Lynn Painter-Stainers, London (third prize winner)
2009 Chappel Galleries, Essex: Solo Exhibition
2009 Lynn Painter-Stainers, London
2010 Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours 198th Annual Exhibition: The Mall Galleries, London
2010 Eastern Open, King’s Lynn Arts Centre
2010 The Sunday Times Watercolour Competition’s 23rd Year (2nd prize winner): The Mall Galleries, London
2010 Duncan Campbell Fine Art, London: Solo Exhibition
2011 Exhibition at Handelsbanken, Colchester; celebrating their new branch.
2011 Sunday Times/Smith Williamson Watercolour Competition 2011: The Mall Galleries, London
2011 Discerning Eye Exhibition: Mall Galleries, London
2012 Piers Feetham Gallery, London: Solo Exhibition
2012 Lyn Painter-Stainers, The Mall Galleries, London
2012 Chappel Galleries, Essex: Solo Exhibition
2012 Norwich Castle Open Art Show
2013 Chelmsford Borough Museum: Two Man Exhibition with Paul Rumsey
2013 Studio Eleven, Westcliff on Sea, Essex: ‘Kiss the Joy’ mixed exhibition
2013 Royal Society of British Artist, Annual Exhibition: The Mall Galleries, London (invited Artist)
2014 March 1st-30th ‘…just as it is…’ Chappel Galleries, Essex: Solo Exhibition
2014 September Sunday Times/ Smith Williamson Watercolour Competition: The Mall Galleries, London and touring
2015 Lyn Painter-Stainers: The Mall Galleries, London 16th to 21st February 1st prize winner
2015 Piers Feetham Gallery, London: Solo Exhibition 19th March to 11th April
2016 The Arborealists: St Barbe Museum and Art Gallery, Lymington, Hampshire
2017 John Russel Gallery, Ipswich, Suffolk: Solo Exhibition
2017 The Arborealists: Nature in Art Museum Art Gallery,Twigworth, Gloscester
2017 The Arborealists: Les Dortoirs des Moins, St Benoit, Poitiers, France
2018 March 3rd – 1st April Chappel Galleries, Essex: Solo exhibition
2018 The Arborealists: John Davies Gallery, Moreton-in-Marsh June dates tba
Black Swan Arts, Frome 20 July – 2 September
St Ives Society of Artists 29 September – 24 November
2019 Les Arborealistes: Collegiate Saint-Croix, Loudin
2019-2020 Arborealists at the National Memorial Arboretum, Alrewas, Staffordshire
1989 Essex County Council
1999 Jiangsu Province Art Museum, People’s Republic of China
1999 Jiangsu Province Department of Culture, People’s Republic of China
2000/09 Chelmsford Museums, Essex
2000 Ipswich Borough Council Museums & Galleries, Suffolk
2012 Colchester and Ipswich Museums (on behalf of Colchester Borough Council)
2016 Beecroft Art Galley/Southend on Sea Museum, Essex
2016 Our Lady Immaculate, Catholic Primary School, Chelmsford, Essex
2018 Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge
2019 National Railway Museum, York
2000 February Edition, Jiangsu Art Monthly
2000 April Edition, Artists & Illustrators Magazine
2003 ‘A Walk in the Country’: Introduction by Richard Scott – 32pp Monograph, Published by Chappel Galleries, Essex
2006 “Southwold: An Earthly Paradise” by Geoffrey Munn.
2006 Wladyslaw Mirecki at Fifty: Introduction by Simon Frazer – 32pp Monograph, Published by Chappel Galleries, Essex
2006 BBC Television Programme: ‘Seven Man-made Wonders of the East’ featuring, Mirecki and his paintings of Chappel Viaduct
2003 2009 ‘On My Doorstep’: Introduction by Laura Gascoigne published by Chappel Galleries, Essex
2009 The Spectator “Winter Fine Arts” by Andrew Lambirth November issue
2009 Jackdaw Magazine “Easel Words” May/June issue
2009 The Artist Magazine “Masterclass” November issue
2009 Pratique des Arts, France issue no. 89 November 2009 – feature.
2010 Duncan Campbell exhibition brochure: Introduction by Andrew Lambirth
2012 Jackdaw Magazine Jan/Feb 2012 page 36 : News ‘That Beckham Tattoo’
2012 ‘Closely Observed’ Landscape – East Anglia and Beyond: Introduction by Andrew Wilton published by Piers Feetham Gallery, London.
2012 Lynn Painter Stainers catalogue page 11 ‘Holme Valley, Yorkshire’
2012 ‘Around and About: Introduction by David Lee editor of ‘Jackdaw’ published Chappel Galleries, Essex.
2014 ‘…just as it is…’ Introduction by Mark Curteis, Curator Chelmsford Museum, published by Chappel Galleries, Essex
2015 ‘New Landscape Watercolours’ Introduction by Andrew Lambirth, published by Piers Feetham Gallery
2016 The Arborealists – The Art of the Tree Introduction by Tim Craven, curator Southampton City Art Gallery published by Sansom & Co.
2017 Les Arborealists L’art des arbres
2018 “…Stand stable, here / And silent be…”: Introduction by Frances Spalding 32pp Monograph Published by Chappel Galleries, Essex
2018 2018 The Arborealists and other Painters, John Davies Gallery, Gloucestershire