Porth Moina

Porth Moina, oil on canvas, 100 x 73 cm

Porth Moina is in Penwith, Cornwall, on the north coast (and on the southwest coast path) . Porth means "cove" and Moina probably means "mines" in this context.


It was August. The sun was shining intermitently, but it was a brisk, windy day, too windy for the beach. So we went to the moors at Penwith instead, which are scattered with old engine houses and even older prehistoric remains. But it was hard to resist the lure of the sea - and the sea, that day, was a glorious colour at Porth Moina.

The view I present here is a composite. It is, I think, an impossible view; I have dragged the Pendeen Watch Lighthouse into view (it was visible from higher up the approach path, but had disappeared behind the dark, rocky headland on the left); its presence had established itself in my mind and it seemed almost truer to include it than not.

Porth Moina

Oil on canvas, 100x73cm

£700