IAN NATHAN AT NO16 GALLERY

Tucked away in the small fishing village of Shaldon in Devon a new Gallery opened its doors in 2007. A short ferry trip across the River Teign lives one of the country’s finest artists, Ian Nathan.The artist and the Gallery make a fine combination.

Ian Nathan was born in 1954 and spent his formative years in the Devon town of Teignmouth where his ancestors had lived and worked as fisherman and lifeboat men. He showed an ability to paint and draw at an early age but various other pastimes such as boxing and dancing took over for several years. In 1969 he joined the Royal Ballet in London where he trained for four years but realising that the ballet world was not for him, he returned to Teignmouth and began work as a labourer on the local docks. Several more jobs followed, including boat building and work on the roads. Fortunately for the art world he eventually decided to paint full time. Local exhibitions at Torquay’s Triton Gallery were a sell out and he joined the Halcyon Gallery in 1990.At his first one man show almost every painting was sold within an hour. Since then he has gone on to become one of the country’s finest artists, painting not only wildlife, but also recording the lives of the local fishermen as they spend their days sorting mussels and oysters on the beach, a stones throw away from his studio.

Present in a number of Ian’s paintings is Wes Highgate, another familiar face on the estuary. Ian and Wes form part of the Seine boat crew who haul the nets for salmon on the Teign and it is often possible for a customer of the Gallery, who has perhaps been visiting Shaldon for countless years, to buy a framed print or even an original work and wander along the beach for a while to find the artist and Wes to write a short message on the back. In this commercial world it is rather refreshing to see paintings by such a major artist in a little Gallery by the sea. Gallery owner,Wendy, discovered her appreciation of art at an early age and the passion has remained with her ever since. Pursuing her interest over the years has led to many of the local artists she so admires becoming personal friends and she has finally realised her dream by opening ‘No16 Gallery’. The name is taken from 16 Strand, Shaldon, where the gallery forms part of Wendy and husband David’s home. Shaldon has a timeless beauty, captured to perfection in Ian’s latest work Late September Sunshine. Although this painting was only completed in autumn of last year, without the modern mooring buoys as a clue most of us would struggle to put a date to this scene. An exhibition will be held twice a year and on these occasions the upper floor, a lovely light area with views of the estuary, is also open to the public.

Ian Nathan
No16 Gallery
Shaldon,Teignmouth, Devon
Telephone: + 44 (0) 1626 872 278
www.no16gallery.co.uk