Monday, December 16, 2013

The Forgotten Painter

This article appeared in the Friday, December 13th issue of the Bangor Daily News at the top of the ARTS section.
http://bangordailynews.com/2013/12/12/living/who-was-sandy-balmforth-work-of-deceased-belfast-artist-brought-to-light/?ref=LivingBox

Sandy "Harry" Balmforth was a classmate of my wife's during her middle level and early high school days. His story and that of his brother and family are somewhat told in the above web article.

I was in Augusta today, so on the way back I stopped at Waterfall Arts and purchased four of Harry's works, but as I looked around at the paintings I was mostly struck by the passion and power of what I saw there. Timidly, I chose four pieces that were works on paper and may have seemed more "traditional" than others in the collection, but for me showed an understanding of materials and the imitation of form both being handled in a loose and very natural way. If Harry had not had all those demons to chase that appeared in some of his darker works, he might have steadied on the bright soul I could see in the works I chose.


 detail



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