THE two artists showing at Pure Art on Milford Marina, offer contrasting styles and subjects.

From sun-dappled branches to rain-swept harbours, the exhibition that is showing over the Easter holidays, until April 30 at Pure Art in Milford Haven brings together two very different artists with a shared love of Wales.

Wendy Murphy grew up in Kent and moved to Gwynedd in 1990, where she works as a professional painter and lectures in fine art and life drawing at Coleg Meirion-Dwfor. She has won many prestigious awards including twice being the first prize British National winner in the John Laing Landscape paint competition and twice first prize winner in the Tabernacle Museum of Modern Art competition.

"I'm not really interested in painting the grand vista which is a pity because where I live there are lots of grand vistas," she says. "I'm more interested in the corner of somebody's back yard if there's lots of junk in it or old farm buildings with lots of mud and bits of farm machinery lying round."

"It's a labour of love really," she says. "The problem with being creative is that you've always got the potential for it to go wrong; you're never 100 per cent sure what's going to happen - but there's always the prospect of serendipity."

Fellow exhibitor Guy Manning works from a studio in a former sail loft in Tenby harbour - but like Wendy, he avoids painting the most obvious subject matter.

"I'm very wary of painting Tenby harbour because it's been done so well by so many people I don't know what else I could give it. To sing a different song about that would be quite hard," he says.

Instead he paints views looking out to sea, still lifes, and glimpses of the sun through branches. Light is a defining element in his work.

The resulting paintings are uplifting, and often create an illusion of limitless space lying beyond the subject.

"I try and convey a sense of distance - there's no background to the painting so you have a sense that it goes on forever," he says.

"I'm not an intellectual painter," he says. "I don't have any complicated theories behind the paintings; I try to show people something that maybe they've not seen before, even if the picture depicts somewhere they go a lot."

Leslie Crascall, the owner of Pure Art, says he is very excited to have two such prestigious artists.

With Guy's connection to Tenby and the surrounding area and Wendy's award-winning work, Crascall feels this will be a show that Pembrokeshires art collectors must see.