Newport artist Justin Brown has provided paintings for us to showcase and allowed us to use his excellent prose.

Newport artist  Justin  Brown has provided paintings for us to showcase and allowed us to use his excellent prose. 

He states on his webpage 

'I've lived in Newport, since 1969, when I was five. I like to work directly from life, in 'plein air' . My watercolour sketches are really just coloured in drawings. They sometimes look a bit rougher than studio paintings, but I hope they have a directness that's not achieved in any other way. So if you spot someone sketching in Newport or surrounding areas it may well be me. Half the pictures on the Newport Gallery page, the more 'finished' looking ones, were done in my studio. (which means my attic), but they are always based on sketches from life.'

He writes, the following in his booklet 'Newport and the Usk' which you can access via his webpage (see link above). 

'The Usk is a primaeval presence underlying Newport. Of all the impressions made on me, arriving as a child of five in 1969, nothing struck me as vividly as the river. Cutting an enormous furrow it literally split the town in half. The huge volume of thick chocolatey water, regularly dropping to reveal acres of similarly coloured muddy banks, was impossible to ignore. As children we sometimes played at the top of the banks, which quickly made our clothes very muddy, but we didn’t dare venture far as the ‘sinking mud’ had legendary powers of entrapment. The river and its bridges are defining features, distinguishing Newport from more mundane places. Compared to the Usk the Taff is an insignificant trickle, its bridges barely noticeable.'

 

Justin Brown has created several paintings of the footbridge and states, 

'I've painted the footbridge several times. I like to work from life, and I have enjoyed sketching - and just generally walking & cycling, on the new riverfront walkways associated with the footbridge. I'm also attaching a PDF document of a booklet I had printed about the river Usk as it passes through Newport, ( its a section of a larger project I did on Newport & the surrounding area)'. Much of what I paint is the ‘Old Newport’ I remember. But the riverside has changed completely. The old messy industrial cityscape has nearly vanished. It would have made great subject matter for paintings, but it’s gone. And the new river-scape makes it a much better place for living. I love the new riverside walkways, they are great places to walk, cycle or just hang round in sunny weather. And since the old views are gone I painted some of the new views. When I can I like to squeeze some of the old decaying structures of quays and jetties into my pictures, to contrast the old Newport with the new.'

Justin has also painted all the other bridges that cross the Usk, but his favourite is the Transporter Bridge. 

'I called Newport a town of bridges. but, to paraphrase the ‘Lord of the Rings’: There is one Bridge to rule them all. Which is of course the Transporter bridge. It belongs to Newport’s turn of the 19th and 20th Centuries industrial apogee, and naturally relates to the other buildings of that era: see the Waterloo Inn and the West of England, both positioned yards away from the bridge’s western landing point. But the elegant steel work is also timeless in style. Lighter and more graceful than other transporter bridges. It’s not an exaggeration to call it Newport’s Eiffel Tower. Except that we get two towers. And a connecting bit, easily outdoing Paris. Hmm two towers. Is that another Lord of the Rings reference?'

In his booklet 'Newport and the Usk' (see above) Justin has catalogued his paintings under the following headings.

Newport and the Usk

The River in the Town

The Transporter Bridge

The Docks and River Mouth

Please note that although our central view for the project has been the foot bridge we also are concerned with what can be seen from the bridge and Justin's pictures cover many aspects of Newport as listed above.

He can also be found on Instagram  https://www.instagram.com/newportartistjb/