'CHLOË, THE COLOUR BATH' a docu-short by Arran Busk

Cinematographer Arran Busk bares witness to artist Chloë Tinsley painting at sunrise on the Helford River at Trebah Garden in Cornwall during Chloë's residency there. Capturing the translation of the landscape, and light: and also her relationship with the canvas itself, revealing her hidden performance. The private spectacle observed, dance like: the physical self, the canvas, and the landscape in colour curing together. The title of the piece can be heard, rolling with the push of the tide and the sun:

'Barefoot flow in swift. Portraits of light in golden time floods at Trebah. Perform play in ritual. Colour in exhausted serenity. Shared awakening at sunrise on the Helford. Robin. Cormorant.'

sand, salt, silt, pigment, gouache, acrylic, seaweed, primrose, garlic, fingers, feet, palette, sandfly hop, ferns, palms, thorns and moss on unstretched canvas now stretched

The viewer is transported to the hypercolour vision, to the stretch of the arms and the sound of the water as the sun rises with the tide. The scrape of the palette knife to canvas. This natural world becomes magical, detailed and alive. It is Spring, and everything is growing. The Jurassic gunnera forms again. The sun rises again. Here we are. Immersed in it. Here we are, championing the morning, wearing our cloaks, putting on our multi-colours, taking with us this scene. We charge up. We feel intrigued, uplifted. Ready to be light again.

A portrait photograph of artist Chloë Tinsley by Arran Busk, Chloë carries a large loose canvas behind her, with her arms in the air, birdlike, as the painting dries in the morning sun, woodland scene

artist Chloë Tinsley's canvas of the Trebah Sunrise, photo by Arran Busk, Chloë carries her painting back through the woods with the painting behind her, we see an image of a brightly painted canvas in rippled in the wind, loose against the backdrop of woodland

artist Chloë Tinsley a photo by Arran Busk, Chloe carries the loose canvas over her head as it dries

Chloë Tinsley under her canvas documented by Arran Busk

Photos documented by Arran Busk of Chloë Tinsley on the Helford River at Trebah Gardens in Cornwall during Chloë's residency.

Photo of framed painting 'Barefoot flow in swift.. Shared awakening at sunrise on the Helford...' by artist Chloë Tinsley at Trebah.

An invitation to experience:

"On viewing my paintings, I invite you to take five nasal breaths of five seconds out and five seconds in. Linger on the out breath. Painted using full body, I invite to use your own body as a gatekeeper to reading the paintings. Consider them from different distances, relax your eyes, allow them flux, feel your feet grounded, enjoy. Come back and see them at different times in the day, they change in different lights.

I am evermore aware of our need for the disappearing Wildscape. Our landscapes talk to us all the time. They change and shift under our gaze. The weather moves through. Light shifts. Time passes. I use colour to work with the things that are there but that we can’t immediately see. How things relate to each other in the wider landscape, and how they then relate to our own field of vision. It’s a cross between a language and a belief system.

Chloe Tinsley, Colour Bath Collection, Helford Sunrise, Helford Painting, Trebah Painting, Artist in Residence Cornwall, Cornish Art, Contemporary Art UK, Mawnan Church

I have held fast to what I do, that there is this importance to record. To see. To show. To connect, so that others could also. Can painting be sculpture, can it be dance, performative, ritualistic? Can the material change? Be in flux? Change state? Can it bring joy, to move, to enliven?

Painting the Sunrise on the Helford River at Trebah Gardens, painted by Chloe Tinsley, Wildscape Artist, loose canvas on the beach

Surrendering to the process of painting, when in these spaces is both a humbling and moving experience. To push into the constraints of my own physicality, to be vulnerable in Nature and to give over to it, to let it lead, it creates an extraordinary experience every time. Finding urgency in the approaching tide, play in wind change, dazzle in the bright sun, acceptance in the rain and resilience and an inner heat in the cold. The canvas itself shares a vulnerability, I move to translate this shifting wildscape. I paint until the hunger of vulnerability becomes whole. Being in these spaces where people may pass through but where I remain is the most powerful gift. To watch a landscape for hours, the seeing becomes expansive as the view unites."

Helford Sunrise, Falmouth Bay, St Ives, Zennor. Three large canvases framed and hung on a white wall. The first is in pinks, blues and greens of the sunrise, the one in the middle is of the Black Rock in Falmouth Bay, the third is of Zennor Head, by St Ives West Cornwall, all are Cornish Paintings

Visitors view the Cornish Paintings by artist Chloë Tinsley, large canvases and small, one of the Helford Sunrise, another small Helford Painting and the third a painting of Falmouth Bay

"The joy in this painting is palpable, this was the first sunrise I’d seen outside for a year and a half, since becoming a mother. There was freedom in my limbs, and a returning to my own body and sense of self. Whilst part of my body was still back at home wondering where I was."

photo of Chloë Tinsley by Arran Busk

Big, bold Trebah Sunrise Limited Edition print at 108cm x 136cm, add hand finish by artist Chloë.