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Clyde & Co: Winter 2009-10 | ||
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Elisabeth began painting in 1999, attending classes led by a professional artist for nearly 5 years. She regularly takes part in painting workshops. She is now an exhibiting member of 7 Art Societies, amongst them Guildford and Farnham Art Societies as well as Lloyd’s of London Art Group. She has exhibited within an Exhibition at the Runnymede National Trust 1215 Gallery and has won awards at Woking Art Society Exhibitions. Furthermore, her work has been exhibited within the prestigious Society of Women Artists (SWA) Exhibitions at the Mall Galleries in London on various occasions. Elisabeth works in watercolour, acrylic and mixed media, with special emphasis on light and vibrant colours. Her favourite subjects are flowing landscapes in all seasons, strong seascapes, animals, flowers and street scenes – using various textures to create movement and atmosphere in her paintings. She hopes that her enthusiasm and love for painting shines through in her work.
Painting in oils suits Hazel’s personality. She can be bold and brash or pale and interesting and she can change her mind at the last minute!
I love to draw. To constantly reinvent new ways of putting marks and gestures down on paper. The use of materials is crucial to the way any piece of work develops. I put my love of materials down to an early involvement with printmaking, and the need to work with and understand the different qualities of paper. Once a piece of work has been started it is almost as if it has a life of its own, and I have to respond to thought and suggestions that it brings to mind. In the past year or so I have become fascinated by a very tranquil stretch of marsh land that I call Alder Marsh. It is an area of SSI and cannot be touched. In order to capture the complexities of the surface of the water I’ve been hand marbling paper to try to capture the movement. If I look back over the paintings I’ve produced in the last 10 years, they have a predominant theme of water, whether of the local river Wey, the nearby Bourne stream, or Frensham Ponds or further-a-field stretches of coastline. I especially love to work from the patterns that the natural world presents, not the epic landscapes, but what I think of as incidental landscape. The still small vignettes of nature that are all around us in this wooded corner of Surrey. They are my starting points for painting. My interest in sculpture is defined by my passion for form. Somehow, form carries meaning in and of itself, quite apart from any literal ‘meaning ‘ in the imagery. To my mind, form provides a physical bridge between beauty and logic, as demonstrated in the forms of nature, where every element has purpose and nothing is superfluous, and where movement is both expansive and cohesive as well as fundamentally economical. My sculptural influences include - Ancient Egyptian sculpture, which in formal terms has, I believe, never been surpassed ; the figurative work of Malliol ; the landscape inspired work of Henry Moore. Working purely in watercolour, enjoying its translucency, subtlety and unpredictability, my work has an emphasis on colour and individuality. I am inspired by an unusual viewpoint or subject matter and my vibrant, translucent watercolour paintings echo my interest in complex patterns of shape, light, colour and texture. I work with a limited palette allowing the painting to evolve using many layers of wet into wet pure watercolour to give a unity and living colour throughout a wide range of subject matter. My contemporary figurative work is produced both in my studio and outside on location here in the UK and abroad. I have exhibited for several years at the Mall Galleries with the Royal Society of Marine Artists and R I. I am a member of the Society of Women Artists and in 2005 won the Anthony J Lester Art Critic Award at their annual exhibition. In 2005 and 2007 I won the Derwent Artist Magazine Award at Patchings. Besides being a member of the Maritime Art Group and Borderlands Artist Consortium, I run several watercolour classes and courses throughout the year. Kate Pellegrini’s artwork is primarily concerned with representing three dimensions on a flat surface. It is how we perceive our surroundings and exist in space that is explored in the paintings. The works can be divided into two groups: · Representational paintings, based on observation of external motifs · Abstract paintings, based on works of literature, and imagined motifs The representational artwork reflects Kate’s architectural training, generated by making drawings and taking photographs ‘on location’ of views, most recently in Spain, France and Italy. The compositions are a layering of building, landscape, figure and still life motifs, to develop ambiguous spatial relationships. The finished paintings rely heavily on drawing, and attempt to depict the joy of looking. The abstract paintings are based on the ‘Witsun Weddings’ by Philip Larkin. The poem provides the springboard for Kate’s painterly investigations. The boards feature light to medium impasto oil paint, with accidental marks contributing to the surface richness.
Close observation of the world around us, the shapes, colours, light and the inventiveness of the natural world, followed by the challenge of interpreting these themes and developing new concepts is especially stimulating for me – like an exciting journey. Experimenting with various media keeps my work fresh whilst maintaining a natural overall style whether it be representational or abstract. Exploring different materials and techniques has resulted in the mix of pastel and watercolour as a lively and immediate medium for my spot studies which has since developed into a favoured process for a series of paintings. The collages are also created from my outdoor sketches accentuating colour and movement, sometimes abstracting shapes and simplifying structures to make a stronger statement. For example “Making Waves” is developed from a sketch of a Pembrokeshire headland near St Davids whereas “Revealed” was created from a series of sketches made as the tide ebbed at West Wittering. The papers are hand painted to ensure full control of the colours used. They are then torn to create interesting edges, which results in the unique textural quality. These collages attract much attention resulting in many exhibition opportunities such as, most recently, The New Ashgate Gallery, Farnham and the Arts Centre at South Hill Park, Bracknell. I have enjoyed painting in oils since my early days at art college and am still discovering different approaches with this medium. Contours in landscape, the configuration of plant forms, colour harmonies and contrasts provide inspiration for my work. Reflections in water, the rich tapestry of leaves and plants with the flowing movement of wild grasses are recurring themes.
My paintings are responses to places (landscapes) and objects (still-lifes) that have become familiar to me through everyday association. Direct observation is an essential part of my working process, and I find this helps to develop ideas about light, form, colour and composition, expressed simply and directly through the process of painting. I hope that each picture speaks for itself as a convincing and compelling visual statement.
Sheila Wallis comes from Derry, N.Ireland where she lived until she was 16. Born at the height of the Troubles, her work is partly inspired by themes of internal and external conflicts and the vulnerability and exposure of the existential human condition. She has chosen to express these themes by painting the body. In her early life, this was a form which she was prohibited from exploring by the moral strictures of a Catholic upbringing, yet her builder father's abilities with his hands and his talent for creation is her earliest inspiration. Self-portraiture was born out of pragmatism. Financially constrained, she began to use herself as subject. The work acquired another dimension when she discovered a freedom to present anything she wished without making an unwitting sitter uncomfortable. It is important to her that the paintings convey the vulnerability of exposure without being exploitative or cruel. Compassion, empathy, humanity and honesty are the qualities that are crucial to her, be it in her art or in her professional capacity as a support worker for adults with learning disabilities. She won the 2009 Windsor and Newton Watts Painting Prize, the 2009 Guildford Arts/Clyde and Co. Student Award and, to complete her hat trick, the 2009 Threadneedle Figurative Prize.
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© 2010 Guildford Arts Registered Charity No.1089777 |
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