Sea longing presents a series of semi-abstract mixed media paintings based on a small cove in Cornwall. The works explore the emotional weight of place and the way memory returns to it over time. The sea functions here not simply as a subject, but as a recurring point of orientation - a place continually revisited through recollection, longing, and sensation.
“My latest work is about longing, belonging, identity and familial attachment. The daily repetition of days away from something you long for. I went to a beach with family on a beautiful four day trip to the sea. Three generations together for four days. I paid many visits to the little cove nearby. It seemed to hug me and it was like walking down into the arms of family. The large rocky outcrop being the mother (parent figure) and the sea being the child- always coming back and forth but never staying. The parent rock always longing.
When I returned I thought lots about that little beach, I thought of being alone on it in the early morning and I thought of being on it with my sister and between us, our five children. I thought of the joy of being there with our parents and our kids, some of which are getting to the age where they will leave home. I’ve been thinking lots about the cycle of love and warmth and then loss but also the constant returning.”
In the work of Addy Gardner, place is never fixed. It is layered, eroded, and reassembled through time, much like a shoreline shaped by repeated tides. These paintings are built through accumulation and removal: surfaces are worked, obscured, and reopened, allowing earlier gestures to remain visible beneath later ones. This process mirrors the way memories of place persist; not as clear images, but as overlapping impressions that shift with distance and age.