Wirral Arts: Wirral Met tutor Vincent Lavell opens huge retrospective of 30 years’ work at the Williamson Art Gallery, Birkenhead

Nov 24 2010 by Matt Hurst, Birkenhead News

A WIRRAL Met lecturer is celebrating his 50th birthday by holding a massive retrospective exhibition of his work.

A private view of art history tutor Vincent Lavell’s 30 years as an artist, entitled Synthetic Romantic, has been organised for this Friday and Wirral Met colleagues and past students have all been invited.

More than 50 paintings are being exhibited in three of the gallery’s rooms and they represent Vincent’s work from his early days as an artist in 1990 to the present day.

It is the largest exhibition he has ever held.

Vincent, an art historian, said: “The event is a retrospective look at my 30-year collection of paintings.

“My 50th birthday seemed an ideal time to put all my work together and the private view is really my birthday party.”

In Fragment Paintings 2010 he has transferred fragments of famous paintings to his own creative images, while Sex and Violence Paintings 2009 uses images taken from 18th century pictures that, he says, “evoke an Arcadian scene or pleasurable existence”.

Work in Synthetic Romantic Paintings 2003 was done in response to the technique of Alexander Cozens, a British landscape painter who developed a method using accidental blots and marks to generate imagery, and pictures included in The Fabric Pictures 2008 are actually painted on silk cushions.

This weekend also sees the opening of Bebington Photographic Society’s Annual Print Exhibition.

The show takes place at Bebington Central Library, and runs until Saturday December 4.

Vincent Lavell’s retrospective exhibition runs at the Williamson Art Gallery on Slatey Road, Birkenhead, from November 27 to January 22.