John Wells (1907-2000)

Wells found that 'people could cope with a construction alright, but a painting, an abstract painting, they didn't relate to in the same way'. As a result his paintings reflect a more personal response to his environment and surroundings than his constructions...The flatly painted coloured rectangles are held in a delicate tension by the pencil lines which diagonally bisect the central void and suggest a degree of lateral motion. Wells has written about his 'deep awareness of the the living tensions of the environment of the Islands. I mean the weather of all seasons, the wind and the sea, boat and bird movements and the changing reactions of green growing things.

(M. Rowe, John Wells, The Fragile Cell, St. Ives, 1998, p. 12)