Conservation work for Gallery Tresco and Tresco Estate Feb. – March 2023

From time to time Gallery Tresco asks me to have a look at various peices in their collection of artworks that are in need of some attention, sometimes just a thorough clean and sometimes just a loose canvas, and sometimes much more serious damage. I never say no, work is work and I love my work as an artist, but also working with artworks by other artists is fascinating in that it gives me an insight into how other artists work with paint. Over the years, and I have been an artist all my life I have picked up a few methods for renovating and repairing artworks. It helps that on ocassion I have had to repair my own paintings simply because of the way I work. Often painting outside in stormy weather can be problematic especially if the wind is fierce enough and blows the canvas of the easle. Fun Fun Fun

So anyway this year Tresco Estate was having a lot of work done in preparation for a photo shoot and so it was a good oportunity for the gallery to check on their collection, in the end and over a period of about 2 months I repaired 22 paintings. I am not going to go into huge details, instead here are some photo’s with the odd comment here or there …..

 

Also I am not going through all 22 paintings, the following examples are the most notable for various reasons but mainly to show the extremes of what I sometimes am asked to work on

 

First one to repair was one of mine painted back in 2007

This painting had one noticable dent towards the bottom and right of center, also there were several dents and scuffs across the whole area of the sky. I long ago stopped trying to speculate on how such damage occurs. All the paintings I work on are placed in time share accommodations on Tresco, Isles of Scilly and they are very very expensive places to stay and are very very top of the line as far as luxuary holiday accommodation goes all of them are homes from homes with multiple bathrooms, bedrooms, living rooms, underfloor heating, multiple tv’s all top of the line so with this in mind you have to be very well off financially to stay here, which is interesting for me especially seeing the kind of damage I have had to repair over the years. I mean who are these people and how do you damage artwork to the following extent. It is baffling ……

 

Setting up a studio work space, assessing damage, and details of damage, and working out a method of repair

                   

                          

There is only one close up image of the sky as an example and dents like this were radomly skattered across the sky each had to be individually treated by repeated careful sanding, cleaning and building back up the layers. With my own work it is a much easier process not least because I know how I paint, and I have a fab arrangement with Tresco Estate to rework my paintings as I see fit.

The title of this painting is ‘Venus, Crescent Moon, Earth Shine and Noctilucent Clouds’. 96×195 cm Oil on canvas 2007

and on the back of the painting are details of the positions, time, distance and brightness of Venus and The Moon

…. And this is how it turned out ….

 

 

 

Next is another one of mine with substantially more damage

 

This painting had what seemed to be huge areas where the painting had been impacted by something, and I have to say it was in a dreadful state, it needed complete reworking and the affected areas which totalled approx. 30% of the surface area of the painting carefull sanding back and re painting the impacts had created multiple overlapping concentric ring cracks and the cracks had penetrated through the primer layers and had created seems/creases on the back of the canvas that traced out the surface cracks.

 

assessing damage, and details of damage, and working out a method of repair, again a few examples out of many

 

                 

Repairs in progress at this stage all the problem area’s have been identified and carefull sanding back is in progress ….. it requires several days work

 

finished and drying along side another with similar problems

 

and finally restored

Storm oil on canvas 96x 243 cm

 

Not all are as bad as that last one was, some only need a minimal amount of work the next two are also my paintings and required a good clean, the first one had a small chip of paint that had been knocked away where the canvas wraps around the stretcher bar and that was all, a very easy repair that theretheless requires care and still took a few days to complete

 

   

 

 

 

Next – this small painting was by far the worst damaged painting. Despite it’s small size the damage was horendous, it looked like it had fallen with some force on a sharp edge. The problem was that there were two rips in the canvas with cracked and fragmented paint radiating outwards with overlapping cracks again through to the primer layers and close to each other. I have no idea how such damage occured that there were two rips rather than one long one is a puzzle. The damage was also complicated by the sensitive and very delicate nature of the painting. For me this is worst case scenario. It is a completely different way of working paint to my own technique. The problem is also excacerbated by the force with which the damage occured which stretched and distorted the fabric of the canvas around both rips. It is puzzling because the painting even with it’s frame is really quite light …..

 

It took almost 2 months working every day to fix this …. as much as all the other 21 paintings combined and yes it was not fun …. it was an utter nightmare

 

Also none of this damage is ever reported either to the gallery or the estate ….. let that sink in. This painting was found in one of the timeshare properties …. absolutely unbelievable

 

 

Details of the damage

 

              

 

         

 

Another one of mine this time that needed a clean and then placing in it’s new home and was a new acquisition by Tresco Estate

Title ‘Helios’ Oil on canvas Sold through Gallery Tresco to Tresco Estate

 

 

The damage on this next small painting was so very subtle that it is difficult to show, also the frame needed re painting. Again it needed a delicate touch to sort out which entailed removing from the frame so that the painting and frame coud be dealt with independently. The frame was simple mix and match the colour and then a couple of layers of a wax based double rectified turpentine varnish and that was that for the frame. The painting was fairly straight forward – tightening the canvas using the corner wedges and smoothing out the dent by repeated heat treating the back of the canvas

 

           

 

 

Another painting – another tear, though not so bad and the canvas fabric had not been stretched so much, still the same care needed to be taken, careful sanding and rebuilding of the layers and matching the original palette

 

       

 

 

This next painting was a fun repair ….. The painting is quite small and I was informed it had a small thickly painted area that was about to flake off. on close inspection there were many more areas that needed sorting of the same problem. However it was fun to work with because painting in an impasto technique is something I fullly understand and so the conservation work went without any surprises or set backs.

 

Just a few of the problem area’s that needed attention there were 17 in total like this that had to be sorted

            

 

Without going into details as all the next artworks had similar issues and all are now restored re varnished and back in the time share properties

conservation in progress

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

…. I saved the best until last, around 70% of this painting was damaged with overlapping concentric ring cracks. My first reaction was utter disbeif and horror at what I was looking at, then the panic set in, I literally had to go and have a coffee ….. a very strong coffee just to calm down. Then I had a chat with the gallery I basically had no idea if I could sort this painting out, so initially and in some panic I said I could not repair this. But a couple of hours pass, calmness returns, and well I love a challenge I really really love a challenge and I love the work I do. So I had a think, considered my techniques, made a working plan and told the gallery I will give it a go and just got on with it.

Nothing quite like a surprise, just when we all thought that was it ….. another horribly damaged artwork needed attention. The following image is after all the conservation work was done.

 

 

You will hopefully understand my initial reaction when you see the following images of the damage …. I have included large images …. for maximum horror effect

 

 

 

 

 

Oh and the next images are the back of the canvas to show the creases that form with such damage