Eloise Govier

Overview

A vibrant new body of work by Welsh artist Eloise Govier, celebrating her dynamic exploration of colour, texture, and emotion within the contemporary landscape.

West by Southwest presents a new collection of work by Welsh painter Eloise Govier, whose practice explores the expressive potential of colour, texture, and movement. Recognised for her vibrant palette and tactile compositions, her paintings draw upon the principles of Expressionism while embracing the bold chromatic clarity of Fauvism. Each piece begins with an underpainting that intensifies the luminosity of subsequent layers, producing canvases that radiate energy and light. Her approach transforms the physicality of paint into an emotional language, communicating immediacy, optimism, and vitality.

Deeply influenced by the landscape of West Wales, this exhibition reflects Eloise's continuing engagement with place and perception. Rather than depicting the terrain in a literal sense, her paintings interpret the landscape as an emotional and sensory experience. The works presented in this exhibition capture the evolving balance between control and freedom within her practice, affirming painting as a living, exploratory medium.

Works

Press release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

WEST BY SOUTHWEST

NEW WORKS BY ELOISE GOVIER AT ORIEL CANFAS, CARDIGAN

Dates: 30 May to 4 July 2026

Drinks reception & Meet the Artists: Saturday 30 May, 1–3pm.

A new exhibition called 'West by Southwest' by artist Eloise Govier featuring brightly coloured impasto landscapes of Ceredigion and Pembrokeshire opens at Canfas Gallery, Cardigan on the 30th May. The paintings depict the old harbour town of Abergwaun, the iconic Parrog and historic town centre of Aberteifi. Land, sea, sky are the backdrop to cottages, boats, harbours, towns and the coastal line stretching the length and breadth of Ceredigion and Pembrokeshire. The collection features twenty one oil paintings that depict West Wales in unusually vivid, vibrant colour palettes that will surprise and delight the viewer. It is eighteen years since Eloise's first professional solo show on Cardigan High Street, and she has consistently painted the Welsh landscape ever since, creating bodies of work such as 'Wales in Colour', 'The Bridge that Floods', and 'The Night'. This collection is her first solo show in Cardigan since 2022 and is the result of 12 months of drawing and painting.

Raised in rural Carmarthenshire, Eloise explains that the new collection is influenced by childhood memories, traces of life, and a devotion to the materiality of paint as a medium. The collection tenderly portrays familiar west Wales scenes with an abundance of colour. 'I use colour to create mood and vibrancy, some paintings focus on a single colour – such as 'Aberteifi Orange' – where I explore a single colour within the structure of the painting. The idea is that the colours keep the eyes moving and encourages you to keep looking'. Extraordinary colour combinations in particular can be seen in 'The Old Bridge, Fishguard' where acidic greens sit comfortably with ochres, turquoises and magenta pinks.

The statement piece of the exhibition is arguably the painting of Mwnt which captures the landscape as a rich tapestry of patterned, abstracting colour that recalls a Kaffe Fassett quilt or a Tiffany lamp. The result is a landscape brimming with energy and movement, with the iconic Medieval church anchoring the landscape to reality.

The title 'West by Southwest' was born out of the notion of navigation and travelling home, and explores how we make sense of land and landscape via cartography and compass. Weather was also on the artist's mind when painting, 'I spend a lot of time outside capturing my surroundings, I find the local landscape a rich source that never fails to inspire me. We have such varied seasonal weather that can change and offer atmospheres you might not have experienced before or expected that day'. 'At Patch looking across the Teifi estuary towards Poppit a sea mist started to roll in and as it was the Winter season there were only a handful of solitary dog walkers on the beach. The experience of Poppit at a distance is different to being on the beach and a part of it, so I play with distances between myself and the subject and the notion of 'witness'.

Those familiar with Eloise's work will recognise the distinctive impasto style, where texture and form collide with colour. The artist notes: 'there is a physicality to painting with a palette knife where gesture plays a vital role in the emergence of the painting. The movement of oil across the canvas speaks to the rhythm of the artist's body, emotion, and thought in tandem with the subject of the painting. It is a pure, instinctive type of human expression. I hope it transports the viewer to the exact spot and they can lose themselves in the moment – as I do'.

"Eloise has become wildly popular with collectors for precisely the quality that surprises first-time viewers — that fearless generosity with colour and the raw physical energy of her palette knife technique. 'West by Southwest' takes that further than anything she has shown here before, and we're excited to have Eloise back in Cardigan where excitement is building for her return,” says Gallery Director, James Horan.

Renowned landscape painter Eloise Govier hails from Rhyd between Cenarth and Llandygwydd where she has a studio, she also works from her studio in Wiltshire. Eloise spent a formative time in Berlin and Florence directly before beginning her career as an artist. She has a Doctorate in archaeology from the University of Wales and in addition to painting she writes about Prehistoric art and archaeological ideas. She has engaged with archaeological fieldwork in Wales, England and Cyprus.

The exhibition runs from 30 May to 4 July with a special Meet the Artist drinks reception on 30 May from 13:00-15:00

Media Contact for interviews in Welsh and English:

01239 614344 info@canfas.co.uk www.canfas.co.uk

https://www.instagram.com/canfas_/ https://www.facebook.com/CanfasAberteifi/

Oriel Canfas Gallery, Manchester House, Grosvenor Hill, Cardigan SA43 1HY

Open Tuesday–Saturday 10:30–4