Having lived mainly in Dorset since 1974, Tom Weld – painter, teacher and community artist – is moving to Ireland. He is offering his art work for sale, with the proceeds, after expenses, shared with MSF.
There will be a silent auction on Sunday 31st July 2011, 12pm to 5pm, at Cerne Abbas Village Hall, six miles due north of Dorchester off the A352.
How it works
In order to bid, people will be invited to write the amount they would like to pay for a particular artwork in a sealed envelope. At 5pm the winning bids will be announced.
If people make successful bids but are unable to be there at 5pm, arrangements can be made for them to collect – or be sent – their artwork at a later date.
There will be publicity material available about the work of MSF, and an MSF film called ‘Invisibles’, consisting of five short films by well-known directors, shown throughout the afternoon.
There will be refreshments available all afternoon and live music.
What's up for grabs
The art work you will see is selected from over forty years of Tom’s output:
• There are large oil paintings based on nature, mostly two streams in Dorset, in which scale and the processes of water are explored, so that they refer to everywhere where there is water, mud, stone and plant life.
• There are large charcoal drawings about agriculture in one of the wildest but also most man-made landscapes in Europe, the Aran Islands off the west coast of Ireland.
• There are over fifty ‘maps’; paintings on paper which use the idea of mapping, and the beauty of the Earth seen from above, to draw attention to some of the most pressing issues of our time. It is this body of work which particularly relates to the kind of conflicts and issues which MSF so brilliantly addresses world-wide, which is also why Tom has supported them for many years.
• And there are many smaller works on paper, board, and canvas. Much of the work is unframed or unmounted.
• Tom’s work has been exhibited all over London, UK and abroad, including shows in Ireland, India, and three in the US. His most recent solo shows were in 2010 in Poole Arts Centre’s Lighthouse Gallery, and at Sasaki, Boston, US.
For the past eight years Tom has been working for the hospice in West Dorset, as part of a national project. Patients are enabled to make something of significance to them, using words, images, music or film, for themselves or their families, and sometimes for a wider audience. This work Tom has found very absorbing indeed; however it has entailed doing less painting over this period. When he moves to Ireland, he hopes to do similar work in an Irish hospice, but to achieve a good balance between this and painting.