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Beth Richardson
Now based in Portugal, Beth graduated, with a First, from the University of Gloucestershire with BA (Hons) in Fine Art. Throughout this time, she has been practising as an artist, exhibiting and undertaking commissions across the UK and around the world. Her current work incorporates paintings and sculptures made in response to the nature and physicality of distinctive, found quotidian objects that have ceased to function in their normal way. She is particularly drawn to objects which have a strong visual history and human connotations; doors, chairs and baths which she sources from builders yards and reclamation sites.
Statement
“Domestic interiors also become the subject of paintings in which I create psychological spaces and explore the strangely human characteristics the objects reveal both alone and in relation to each other.”
“I am interested in the area of transitional space between the 2-D, conventional use of painting and the move beyond the floor into amore inclusive, installation space. Given the liberty to work on several pieces at once I assemble and alter familiar objects to generate new meanings and readings. The space and nature of the work creates an installation environment, where the individual pieces and even the clutter on the floor can contribute to a whole piece. This organic development of an environment continues to challenge my pre-conceived boundaries of what I believe constitutes a painting.”
Witness – acrylic on canvas framed 120 x 120cm
Beth Richardson – Witness – acrylic on canvas framed 120 x 120cm
Jo Lucas
Jo Lucas is a British painter of contemporary land and seascapes. After graduating she established her career in London where she lived for 15 years. Awards from Arts Council England and Pilkington enabled her to work and travel to remote parts of Alaska and Patagonia, India and Kazakstan.
She is best known for her large canvas on which she paints using a large range of mediums and application techniques to really capture the nature of the landscape with free flowing energy and colour. Jo’s paintings work as a centrepiece, but also contain a range of detail that draws you to a different part of the canvas on every viewing.
Her work has been selected for exhibition by RCA Conwy, ING Discerning Eye and Affordable Art Fair and she has paintings in collections in New York and New Delhi. They continue to attract individual and corporate clients here and abroad. Jo is currently based in the south west.
Statement
I make landscape paintings of places I know in Britain and in other parts of the world. I’m particularly inspired by the views from my Cotswold studio and locations on the North Cornwall coast.
To me, the process of making a painting is important. Over time I apply many layers of paint with prominent brushstrokes so that the landscape subject matter is loosely defined. I use a range of paint media to create rich colour harmony and a wealth of surface texture.
In its abstraction, I aim for my work to have the depth and resonance of the natural world: a certain wild place, a beautiful time of day or striking seasonal effect.
Cloud Cover – mixed media on canvas 160 x 200cm
Juli-Anne Coward
Juli Anne was born in Staveley in the Lake District. She studied at the Cumbria College of Art and Design and then Graphic Design, specialising in Illustration, at the Bath Academy of Arts. In 2003 she moved to Herefordshire, where she lives and works.
Greenstage Gallery have exhibited Juli’s work at the Greenstage since 2007 and at the Affordable Art Fair since 2008. A Painting of Bristol Cathedral was used on much of Bristol Cathedral’s publicity for 2008/09 and also as their Christmas card for 2008. She was also shortlisted for the ‘2008 Canon and Art Business Today competition’.
Juli studies and paints buildings and her paintings capture the essence of a place be it Southern Spain, Italy or New York. She paints places full of people, but without a face to be seen, just the everyday details that make places human; the shutters, satellite dishes, flags, water butts etc.
Statement
“As a child I chose to paint the rooftops visible from my parent’s window. I have always loved painting all kinds of buildings from ancient to the most contemporary. I believe that all buildings have a certain energy of their own which is independent of the way they are used by the people who inhabit them.
I do not have a preconceived idea of how a particular image will evolve, but I prefer to work instinctively and let the buildings divide the painting into different blocks of colour. I will experiment with surfaces and techniques and I will work with all sorts of media such as collage, gesso, plaster, oils, acrylics and inks. My dramatic use of colour permeates many of the pictures I paint. Colour and lines attract me and as I work I let the colours bleed into one another.”
Old as the Hills – acrylic on canvas 76 x 108cm
Maggie Jones
After running her own retail business in Cornwall, Maggie Jones decided to change course to concentrate on painting. She moved to London in 1992 and started a Fine Art degree at Wimbledon School of Art in 1995. After graduating she set up her studio in Cable Street, Limehouse; taking part in many group shows and art fairs in London. In September 2005 Maggie and her partner moved to the Welsh Borders.
Statement
I believe that our lives are inextricably linked to, and influenced by our earliest experiences. I was brought up in North Cornwall and spent most of my formative years beside the sea and amongst the varied landscape of the West Country.
Today layers of paint on canvas or paper represent through colour and texture the essence of places. Working mainly from memory enables me to manipulate the original place, to express my experience of it, to exaggerate and improvise.
Forest Spectrum revisited I – oil on canvas 114 x 137cm
Mary Edwards
Although born in the great industrial city of Coventry, Mary has spent most of her life in the country and nearly all of that in the Welsh Borders of the Wye Valley.
Her paintings give intriguing views of life which, though contemporary, are intensely nostalgic snapshots of a way of life that many people are tempted to think has long passed by.
Mary has exhibited her work throughout the UK for many years and has had work accepted for many exhibitions and competitions at both a regional and national level, including the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, the RWA Open Exhibition (Bristol), The National Assembly for Wales and National Eisteddfod and many, many others.
Statement
“They reflect the small moments of time from happy memories and imagination that have been part of my life for more years than I care to remember”.
“I sometimes pinch myself thinking how lucky I am to be a painter – every day is a new day full of expectation for the magic that painting can bring – when all goes well, and with the knowledge that I can never be bored, there is always so much to see, do and think about.”
Watching Jackdaws Shopping & Birdwatching – oil on card 29 x 37cm
Pia Dowse
Pia was born in Ascot, England in 1987. She graduated with a first class honours in Fine Art Degree at University College Falmouth then went on to study a MA in painting conservation at Hamilton Kerr Institute, University of Cambridge. She now has her studio in Amsterdam.
Pia has exhibited with us at the Greenstage since before she went to Falmouth and her work has been exhibited in the UK and Europe as well as at the Affordable Art Fair in Battersea London.
Whilst at Falmouth she studied under Lisa Wright and her work is influenced by artists such as Edward Hopper, Vermeer, and Dexter Dalwood.
Inspired by liminal spaces – areas between one point in time and space and the next – Pia seeks to depict a space where viewers teeter between a public and private sphere, or a public and domestic sphere, between the known and unknown, the familiar and uncanny and comfort and danger.
The paintings originate from photographs, which is important because the paintings also explore the space between the real place and a photograph. The scenes are often (though not exclusively) caught at dusk or night time which lend the scenes a further sense of eeriness and mystery, feelings often associated with liminal spaces.
Statement
Much of my painting practice is informed by my masters studies in painting conservation where we undertook historical reconstructions of great master paintings. In doing this we learnt about artist’s materials and how they were ordered and handled to produce the desired effects. This practice and knowledge has transformed my own paintings from being executed in a spontaneous wet-in-wet approach to a more considered layering technique using oils.
In the spotlight – oil on canvas 43 x 43cm
Plum Neasmith
Based in Cheltenham, Plum graduated with a BA (Hons) in Painting & Drawing from the University of Gloucestershire. As an undergraduate she won the prestigious Grant Thornton Travel Award and travelled to Chicago.
Her striking paintings on panel demonstrate her unique style of representing real places in a subtle, layered manner verging on abstraction. Using photography as a starting point, she looks for composition, form and juxtaposition of colour. Additional influences are the written word: both the form of letters and their meaning.
She says of her work: “Work is often a delicate balance between chance and control. One aim is to disguise in an appearance where things are hidden beneath the surface both physically and metaphorically.”
Artist Statement
“Painting for me provides the means to say things, which other forms of communication cannot. It has enabled me to express feeling that I never knew existed or perhaps had an awareness of but was unable to articulate. A language has developed based on specific personal photos that are chosen for their colour, form, composition and the feelings engendered. An individual image evolves into a series of work, which provide the possibility of engaging in a conversation about an idea but one that is not necessarily specific in any one of them. It is a starting point, a way of beginning but not necessarily ending as each painting reveals itself slowly, through feelings evoked by the materials and processes involved.”
Ballinglen: The Day before Yesterday I – oil, wax on board 42 x58cm
Sally Stafford
Sally trained at Stroud School of Art and Bower Ashton in Bristol, she has been a professional artist since 2004.
Sally’s immersive, evocative works team with life and movement, and although informed by study and observation, her paintings are an emotional response to the natural world that she experiences on her travels: moments of highly personal connection on canvas.
She often works on the floor, building layers of colour and texture with paint, ink, wax and pigment, allowing the various media to react and pool together. This process is both visceral and meditative, as Sally is not simply painting her natural subjects, but propagating a living image with intuition and spontaneity.
Her works have been exhibited both in Galleries and Art Fairs around the world and her pieces can be found in the collections of Gwent Wildlife Trust, The University of Bristol, BVG Associates (Wind and Solar Energy Consultants) and Município de Estremoz, Portugal aswell as in private collections in UK, Portugal, USA, Canada, Indonesia, Spain, Germany and Australia
Statement
What interests me is exploring my memories of places and the effects of time on these places. I think of the canvas as a growing living thing. Layers of paint are poured, scratched into and overpainted. Chance and accident are appreciated and included. Plant forms emerge and recede echoing the searching for a memory and the essence of a place and time.
“Sally Stafford’s spiritual landscapes not only evoke the romanticism of the past, but also excites our hunger for contemporary painting with her alchemy of media; her capturing floral and pastoral forms in an instantaneous manner in brushstrokes that seem to become quick, subtle, twisted and elegant; and the metaphysical aura she creates through constantly shifting perspectives.
Sally’s paintings reflect the spirituality of the contemplative moment when immersed in the sheer brilliance of the natural landscape. There are strong impressionist echoes, yet there is an energy and spiritual balance that is achieved through experimentation of colour, space, line and texture.”
Spring Garden – mixed media on canvas 80 x 80cm
Sara Hayward
Born in Barnt Green, Worcestershire, Sara Hayward is a UK based artist. She studied fine art at the Ruskin School of Drawing & Fine Art, Oxford University, and printmaking at the Royal College of Art, London.
Sara finds inspiration from her travels abroad to the coasts of Europe as well as closer to home on the shores of Great Britain. Sara’s artworks include abstract pieces, still life, seascapes as well as portraits.
Her expressive, painterly style is concerned with capturing the energy of her subject matter using a heightened colour palette and printmaking inspired mark making techniques. She has developed a personal use of heightened colour to represent the world around her, pushing the boundaries of traditional painting through printmaking inspired painting processes.
A suite of her still life etchings of Worcester Porcelain jugs and her portrait of BBC Antiques Road Show presenter Henry Sandon MBE hang on permanent display at the Museum of Royal Worcester. She is married to landscape painter Paul Powis.
Statement
The human form is central to my current practise with female figures a present focus. The current series Elle 1:1 000 000 celebrates and debates the female form and the inner strength of women around the world. The images are predominantly taken from newspaper cuttings with real life, distorted by media interpretation, given a vibrant captivating existence.
Working in a semi abstract way images gradually emerge and minimal detail is included with ambiguity essential and energetic mark making vital to the image making process. Fast-drying acrylic paints allow layers to build up and working on multiple images I move through a series of images simultaneously to retain a freshness and immediacy. I like to use a limited palette and incorporate printmaking techniques into the paintings which are constructed using stencils and layered mark-making.
Using a limited palette a woman is described, portrayed in just a few deft painterly brushstrokes. Sensitively executed, she represents contemporary woman with no facial features necessary. Painterly brush marks are juxtaposed against hard edged brush marks and the negative spaces around the figure are given equal importance in the handling of paint which has been used expressively to capture the moment. The incidental mark making in the background give an energy to the “portrait”.
Elle 71 – acrylic on paper 38 x 31cm
Stella Hidden
My paintings are a journey of discovery from the very first mark until the final brushstroke. As the idea forms the painting develops and evolves over many months, incorporating the vibration and resonance of ‘sound’ and colour.
Both the large and small paintings are based on board using acrylic paint.
Many years ago trained in technical drawing, studied perspective and form and worked in a drawing office. Then after raising a family I returned to study Fine Art, Textiles and Art History at Hereford College of Art and continued with 20th century Art History through the Open University.
Since then I have worked in 3D, relief and 2D work. There has been a long personal transition between depicting representational elements of landscape and the human figure, to one of employing pure abstraction where movement of suspended colour is of prime importance.
My main aim is to explore the use of layered colour and richness of paint to create rhythmic images within an atmosphere of movement and light, which are full of vitality and mood, some exuberant, others quiet and contemplative. The intense focus on colour, incorporating musical pitch, instrumentation and rhythmic subtlety leads to paintings of a rich ‘sound’ that resonate and continues to vibrate.
The process of creating a painting embraces not only technique but also layers of thinking, feeling and the contemplation of the work in progress. Inspiration and spontaneity is always necessary to complete a work that satisfies me.
‘Each moment we live we experience life through our senses; when I look at the countryside, an object, a figure, I see a harmony of colours, the shapes, the tones, the shadows. I hear the numerous sounds – note the treble, the bass, the forte, the piano and the silence. I feel the rhythm, the pulse, the vibrations and the stillness. In my painting I absorb all these moments, accumulating in a painting in an abstract form.
My paintings are visions without objects requiring a response entirely dependent on the language of colour, rhythm and form.’
On The Edge – acrylic on board 100 x 100cm
Veronica Hudson
Veronica Hudson lives and works on the Jurassic Coast in West Dorset, and her practice grows from a place firmly rooted in the surrounding landscape.
The unconventional, textured quality of Veronica’s mark-making distinguishes her work. Her collection of drawings, paintings and sculptures unpack the process of their making through their organic, honest forms. Exploring a wide variety of mediums, such as oil paint, ink, plaster, clay, wood, and charcoal, the work becomes bound by its central motive of storytelling. Exploring our symbiotic existence, Veronica’s work nurtures the way in which we mark and are marked by our environment.
Statement
“Living in a simple adobe hut in the scrubland of the desert, walking by day through empty canyons of deep red rock, stacks of rocks towering overhead, feeling the presence of these silent rock people. Equipped with three tubes of paint, inks, watercolour and desert dust, a roll of brown paper I would spend the morning drawing painting and walking through the canyons absorbing the vastness of the desert and the presence of the history of the land, totems of the past. My small studio provided a quiet place to fill my 100 square sheets using water colour, inks, lead powder and desert dust with images of the land and my walks. Once home, with this memory I painted a series of canvases in oil and charcoal.”
Canyon I – oil on canvas 112 x 112cm
