Paintings with fizzing contrasts, bold compositions and clever knife work - November is just the month to show the new collection of paintings by Tim Fudge in Tenby, showing at The White Lion Street Gallery.

The artist has contributed to and had solo exhibitions in galleries throughout South and West Wales since he left Art College in 1999. He taught various drawing courses for Swansea University's student union and also tutored in life drawing and about approaching abstraction.

The surface of much of Tim Fudge's work is oil or acrylic paint, rich bright colour, pushed into thick ridges or slabs, flattened to thinner translucent layers or delicately detailed by palette knife. The subject in this exhibition ostensibly is landscape - of West Wales and the west of Ireland, especially where land meets sea. Tim spends as much time as he can out in the Pembrokeshire countryside and coast. The county has been his home for many years and as a child he was a frequent visitor to a family farm here.

As well as the emotional connection to the area, and responding to the view before him, the artist is interested in what underlies the landscape - what rocks, what geological shifts, what ages were in the making; and what signs may be left by former peoples who not only shaped the land by use, but also carved stone, erected monoliths and circles, created huge earthworks and fortifications.

Take for example the painting Carningli from Cnwc yr Hydd: an impasto rust-red foreground leads to a mountain, with sea and distant land beyond. Underneath the surface lies a bog created by countless crushed layers of vegetation, ancient extinct volcanic peaks known to have been inhabited in the Bronze Age, and the remains of a complex hill fort raised in the Iron Age. Myths of warriors and angels were told then and now. The painting is neither a geological survey, nor a strictly topographical representation, but a painterly response by the artist to the landscape he sees but with the knowledge and understanding of what forces and history created it.

Tim Fudge has been fascinated by geology from his youth and whether his work is abstract or directly based on a view 'for me it's the rock that links everything I do' ... ranging from close observation of surface erosion and lichen to representing the massive stones deliberately placed for religious or other ritual gatherings by societies long gone.

A recurring feature in the work is an impression of wild flowers found underfoot on site whilst painting on small canvases or in watercolour. Campions along a cliff top provide a red and pink foreground, monbretia's sharp oranges introduce a Kerry seascape, honeysuckle is found on Dinas Head and on the Iron Age fort of Pwll Deri are the soft blues of squill and bluebells echoing the sea beyond. The intricacy of the flower forms may be finely picked out or shown as large slabs of mixed colours. It's the colour that counts.

Tim was born in Edinburgh and feels he owes much to the influence of the Scottish colourists, post-impressionists with a highly developed use of colour. He selects and accentuates the colours rather than inventing them, giving each its full value. Bold and vibrant works result, intuitive and expressive, filled with a passionate intensity impossible to ignore.

The exhibition 'Just below the surface' opens tomorrow (Saturday) and continues until 28th. The gallery is open from 10 am to 5 pm every day except for Wednesdays and Sundays. For further information, telephone (01834) 843375 or see the website http://www.artmatters.org.uk">www.artmatters.org.uk