Chris Tancock was born in Devon, studied photography at Nottingham Trent University and first came to Pembrokeshire 14 years ago when he was offered employment that he needed to pay off his student overdraft. He stayed, and has now settled in Nolton Haven, from where he has established an enviable reputation for his landscape photography which is selling well in around a dozen galleries across West Wales. His viewpoint is remarkably individual. He is a masterful printmaker who seems to be able to extract the richest luminous highlights along with the lush dense blacks from ordinary photographic images. After much experimentation, his darkroom technique has evolved to the point where he can now fully express the sense of mystery he perceives in his relationship to the landscape. By losing some of the detail in the image he enables the atmosphere and mystical qualities he felt to come out in the print. "It is a sign of the quality of his images," said Margaret Welsh, of Art Matters Gallery in Tenby, "that buyers of Chris's work are attracted by the composition, atmosphere and colour of the images and despite the fact that they are Pembrokeshire based they rarely ask for the location." A collection of new work by Chris Tancock will be launched in a new exhibition in Tenby starting tomorrow (Saturday). Many of the images have been captured by him during those hours when most of us are fast asleep, early summer mornings around dawn and late evenings during the past month or two. Subjects include a series of superb atmospheric viewpoints of Bosherston Lily Ponds in a sepia hue, together with images of Goodwick, Abermawr, Newgale, Strumble Head and a collection of breaking waves. They will be available framed and unframed, some in strictly limited editions and much of his regular work will also be available in the gallery. Readers are invited to meet Chris at the opening tomorrow between 7 and 9 pm. The exhibition continues until Friday, July 29, daily except Wednesday, from 10 am to 5 pm, and entry is free. Art Matters Gallery is situated in South Parade, opposite the town walls and next door to the fire station. For further information, telephone 01834 843375.
