During May at Newcastle Arts Centre Aidan Doyle will be showing a selection of colourful and expressive paintings and prints that marked his journey through lockdown.

ACQUA ALTA. In November 2019 the artist visiting Venice surprisingly found the city inundated with some of the most severe flooding ever recorded. At night the palaces appeared to be dissolving into the ever rising waters of the Adriatic. He returned there in February 2020. The Carnevale was cancelled, galleries and cafes closed, the streets emptied: a string of dull days, when even the Sun couldn’t pierce the dank mists of the Lagoon. Unquiet beginnings.

PETRICHORE. The paintings emerged  from the greyness and began to reflect the heady abundance  of the ‘Silent Spring’, through his loosened use of strong  colours and textural overlays, and a body of work emerged with vibrant watercolours and defiant monoprints. A selection from these works has created a Palace of Colour in an old empty mansion house in the recently empty city.

* The exhibition takes place in two venues in Newcastle – the Arts Centre, 69 Westgate Road, and the Assembly House, 55 Westgate Road. Open to the public Tuesday to Saturday/ 10am – 4pm.

* AVAILABLE TO BUY. Some proceeds from sales of the works will be used to support the revival of cultural practices in and around the Newcastle Arts Centre.