Melanie Alexandrou (Gifted)
Melanie J. Alexandrou was born in Stockton-on-Tees, England but moved to Cyprus when she was 3 weeks old where she lived for the first 14 years of her life. In 2000 she moved to Macclesfield, England and went on to study Art in York in 2006.
Since graduating in 2009 she has exhibited in York, Bollington, Macclesfield and Leeds, as well as travelling to Newcastle and Middlesbrough with Happycat Collective, which she co-founded in 2008. She also co-created The Postal Project in 2010 and completed an AA2A Residency at Manchester Metropolitan University in 2011.
Her work is about the attention to skill in making, whilst drawing on ideas based in nature, using a variety of mediums (such as painting, drawing, printmaking, textiles, bookmaking and postal art) and often resulting in an environment where the audience can not only view the work, but also has the opportunity to interact with the work and potentially create their own work.
She believes that the artist should not be so strictly separated from the viewer, and that this is key to making art accessible to everyone, and creating a network of exchange that is not particularly linear. Similarly, she doesn't think that there should necessarily be such a strong distinction between art and craft. The focus on fauna and foliage within her work is a way of exploring a return to a more organic aesthetic, using materials and methods that are craft-based and that celebrate the distinctive traits of the handmade.
She currently works from her studio in Macclesfield, Cheshire. http://magpiethunder.blogspot.com/
Richard Allaway (Pop, print & Stitch)
Richard has recently graduated from York St John University where he studied a BA Hons Degree in, Contemporary Fine Art and Contextual Studies.Throughout his time within the University he achieved an array of qualities that have furthered his artistic knowledge and skills to a level where he in confident to be able to participate within an acclaimed, renowned, creative profession.
Richard explores the sculptural potential and materiality of space and light, to produce experiences of spatial mass and volume, creating sculptural installations within a dark space.
His work is indentified in a way in which it contains distinctive elements of minimal art. Focusing his design ideas on the fundamental means within the genre of art, allows himself to think of how he can create compositions of sculptural installations including the idea of, shape, colour and depth of simplicity to the work.
Heather Ashton-Rowell (Gifted)
Heather is a professional Artist working in Hyndburn in Lancashire from a studio in the East Wing, Balcony Kiosk, Market Hall in Accrington.
Heather works as a figurative artist. More specifically specialising in drawing and painting from the nude. she uses photography as a way of collecting information, but it is rather more than that: it is a way of capturing a moment, and because she has worked with male and female couples it is a way of isolating a moment of intense intimacy between the two that Heather feels she loses when drawing because of the time it takes to achieve the image. Heather uses friends and family members as the models for her work.
Because they are ordinary people and not professionally-trained 'life models' Heather has to consider issues regarding their personal comfort for the poses she requires and the duration of time required for holding these poses, Heather also appreciates the fact that her models are working within an environment of a domestic setting and that unlike the peaceful, structured environment of the life-drawing studio she will have to deal with possible interruptions and activity around her. Heather feels that this adds to her experience of working with them and it reiterates the fact that these are 'real people' in 'real life' situations. Heather works with everyday people in everyday settings and this makes the 'split-second' moment in time more precious. She shoots a lot of photography and then selects the ones that seem to be the most powerful and looks at a photograph for a long time until she can 'see' the painting that she is going to make from this information.
After studying the work of contemporary artists Heather feels that as a whole, the nude, as in the painted nude, has slipped out of fashion yet she finds the most subtle of ways to make the nude more comtempoary. Heather's website can be seen at http://www.genepoolart.com/
Caroline Backhouse (Gifted) & (PomPom Forest)
Pom Bomb!
As part of Nantwich Festival of Arts 2012 Caroline will be coordinating a mass participation public art project which will involve community groups and individuals making pom poms to form part of a large scale interactive installation at the festival.
Caroline's main objective for this project is to engage with people of all ages and abilities, offering an art form that touches the whole community and encourages an understanding and enthusiasm for the Arts as an outlet for creative and physical energy. She has been involved in mass participation projects before in her role working with the arts team at Cheshire West and Chester Council and as an artist it is something she is hugely passionate about.
The programme of workshops and activities will begin early in January 2012, however Caroline is doing a series of flash mob type public art displays around East Cheshire starting in September as a way of measuring the level of public interest in the concept and getting people excited about it.
For more information please visit: http://www.flockarts.co.uk/pombomb/
Charlie Backhouse (Gifted)
Charlotte's influences are nature, calligraphy, everyday things and many art nouveau artists especially Mucha. She wants to capture the attention of people who see her work and would like to inspire and excite.
Michael Barrow (Focus photography exhibition)
Michael's work is a comment on the world around him.
He works quickly and without too much thought, admittedly. The 'decisive moment' is spontaneous and none dramatic. Michael's photography, in addition to other work, has always come as a result of his intrigue into context and the subjective nature of the human 'self' in that context.
He is fascinated by the idea of lives that co-exist, without ever really joining as it brings a great sense of isolation and Michael tries to mirror this in each shot.
Michael dwells on space and the suggestion of a human presence whilst trying to keep his work simple and unedited.
Using old film formats and working from a strict interest in everyday working class surroundings, Michael finds beauty and intrigue in the curious and relentless narratives of the quotidian.
Michael believes that within photography there is a great deal of importance contained within empty space. He tries not to bombard a viewer with stimulus. Sometimes what's not in a shot is more important, more suggestive.
Gaining a recognised Associateship Distinction from the Royal Photographic Society in February 2011, Michael continues to work spontaneously and candidly, taking inspiration and influence from the photojournalist, reportage styles of Magnum Photographers.
Michael Barrow | Photographer | Greater Manchester
Alexander James Bell (Jason, Del & Bumper | FOUR - Barnaby Festival 2013)
Jason is an ongoing photographic project by photographer Alexander James Bell.
Largely influenced by photographer Darcy Padilla, Jason follows the relationship between a homeless man (Jason) and his dog.
The project is 'time based' and as to state the obvious, it will only unfold and manifest across weeks and months as Alexander spends more time with Jason and their lives go on.
Alexander is a 2nd year photography student at Manchester Metropolitan university.
Eleanor Bennett (Portfolio)
Eleanor's descriptive and delicate photographs have made this 15 year old an internationally award winning photographer and artist.
Eleanor has won first places with National Geographic, The World Photography Organisation, Nature's Best Photography, Papworth Trust, Mencap, The Woodland trust and Postal Heritage.
Eleanor's captivating photography has also been published in the Telegraph, The Guardian, BBC News Website and on the cover of books and magazines in the United states and Canada.
Among all these accolades, perhaps the one to really stand out is that she was also the only person from the UK to have her work displayed in the National Geographic and Airbus run See the Bigger Picture global exhibition tour with the United Nations International Year of Biodiversity 2010.
Eleanor is clearly a talent and her skills and eye will only develop with age - one to watch!
Eleanor Bennett | Photographer | Manchester
Paul Bennett (Gifted)
With the digital age well and truly with us, the advances of visual media mean that almost anything is possible within the boundaries of our imagination. It has been Paul's aim to create work that is most definitely a painting; accomplished by using rich textures, multiple layers, poured paint and brush/palette knife marks. This becomes a way of escaping the everyday, mass produced visuals that we are constantly exposed to and the way in which we now digest and assimilate our visual world. Paul is a great admirer of photography and photorealism and appreciates the technical ability to produce such works. However, his approach is to record and comment on things that are more than visually apparent: to tease out more than the eye can see, to draw people in and invite them to experience - not just consume - an image.
The seascape and abstract paintings created are inspired by his memories and experiences and are developed using artistic intuition. They are not tied into any specific region or time, they are an eclectic synthesis of place, weather and season. Paul chooses to capture and communicate his experiences this way as it reflects life with its unceasing process of observing, experiencing, interpreting, storing - and ultimately - reflecting. The result he strives for is a unique and original visual experience that has captured not only the sense of somewhere/sometime, but also the more subtle notion of recollection.
Occasionally he refesr to photography as a starting point and as a way to engage with the surface and begin the initial mark making process. After this point it is all an abstract interpretation of the memories he has and places he has experienced. This, is all brought together with constant experimenting and he finds the works are continuously evolving and influencing the next.
Oil paint is the medium that plays a big part in capturing the essence of a faded memory and lends itself nicely to the way Paul paints. It works well when applied thickly and can create great depth when worked into the surface sparingly, which leaves previous layers partially exposed. The paint is applied in this way to give the artwork itself a narrative and history, where the process of its creation can be glimpsed at in places - not dissimilar to the way in which the memory deals with the hazy recollection of a place once visited.
He has recently started to introduce a high gloss finish, which works in two ways. Firstly, it gives the paint beneath a much richer and more vivid finish, and secondly, it produces a vaporous reflection where the viewer can see and incorporate themselves into the image, bringing us back to observing, experiencing, interpreting, storing and reflecting. Now the viewer can exist as part of the work - as well as identify with the atmosphere and character the painting seeks to capture. By doing this, Paul has broken away from the more traditional methods or sea and landscape art. http://www.paul-bennett.co.uk/
John Biddle (Up & Coming)
Illustrator, Designer and Hamster lover. Currently studying at the Liverpool School of Art, John primarily works in ink and digital and his list of clients includes Liverpool's Lime Pictures, and the New York Publishers, Nomad Editions. For more information on John's work, please visit: http://johnbiddle.blogspot.com/
Colin Binns (Up & Coming)
Colin explores myth and memory and their connections with places and events through mixed media paintings.
His practice involves combinations of paint, print, photography, collage and found materials, making responses to locations holding a personal significance. Studies in Eastern ideas of landscape and place have had an influence on Colin's approach, helping integrate an intuitive response with analysis of the underlying dynamics of a place. The imagery within his work is drawn from intensive research of each location,before its assembly into expressions of abstract ideas and visual reference points. For more information on Colin's work please visit: http://colinbinns.com/
Tony Bishop (Gifted)
Tony Bishop works in mixed media, which idividually consists of different types of metals, woods, and any found or reclaimed materials he can get his hands on.
He uses them on either canvas or timber and then use this as a base to create his paintings, generally using acrylics, oils or gloss to add tone and colour and retain a nice amount of soul to the pieces. The methods he uses gives his work a unique, contemporary and modern feel with an abstract, urban edge which combined with today's minimalistic living designs work perfectly giving a gritty and striking visual finish to either a residential, recreational, or commercial developments.
Tony believes that in one way or another we should all learn to create. Let it be music, sculpture, a song - anything! In his case, a work of art. He believes it's a perfect way to express yourself and let your feelings be known.
He thinks by using your own unique imagination and creativity it gives beauty or a feeling of well being. That can be a very powerful and rewarding experience which can enrich our lives for the better. Expressing yourself in a form of creativity also helps with a number of general lifestyle issues that can ultimately be released onto a blank canvas of whatever art form you take pleasure in doing. This is an important thing to channel over the course of your life, and what better way than in the form of art?
Stefan Bleekrode (Up & Coming)
Stefan creates his own imaginary cities on paper, as a substitute for the passion of travelling that has been with him all his life.
Over the years, Stefan has enhanced his technical abilities and increased the amount of detail in his city drawings, or cityscapes as he calls them.
Nowadays, Stefan creates his own world-class cities comparable to Paris or London. The latter being where he finds most of the inspiration for his paintings.
Stefan's work shows a love for light and shadows, architecture, a nearly geometric composition and the absence of movement.
Stefan mainly works in the Netherlands but often travels to various places in Europe and occasionally to the United States in search of inspiration. For more information about Stefan's work, please visit: http://stefanbleekrode.exto.org/
Dominic Bradnum (Pop, print & Stitch)
Dominic's work is primarily concerned with capturing the flickering,
incandescent qualities of neon lights. He works mainly in oil paint,
building up layers and glazes and taking advantage of the slow drying
times to blend the pigment and create subtle changes of tone and
contrast. The images take on an optical, almost transient, quality,
playing with the viewers' perceptions, as they seem to shimmer across
the surface of the canvas. The subject matter often takes form as
textual musings: pop-art style slogans; playful and evocative
one-liners; plaintive thoughts. Or as abstract forms: phosphorescent
drips; meandering lines; geometric shapes; op-art patterns.
Wish You Were Here
Dominic has a romantic notion of the out-of-season coastal town: the faded
glamour and flaking paintwork of the seafront hotel; empty beach-huts
huddled on a windswept promenade; whitewash waves crashing on a
deserted beach, as the first few drops of rain spot on the pebbles.
The artwork draws on the long-standing traditions of seascape
painting, capturing the elemental forces at work where sea meets land.
A vast and foreboding, leaden sky looms overhead, a biting wind whips
across the empty beach.
This bleak and timeless snapshot is tempered by the presence of a
flickering, bright red neon message: 'Wish you were here'… to share
the cheap-and-cheerful tack of the pier and a plate of greasy chips in
the cafe that time forgot.
Kate Bufton (Abstracted)
Kate is currently undertaking an MA in Creative Education, whilst also doing a 12 month Artist residency at Winstanley College, Billinge.
For the past few years Kate's practice has revolved around old unwanted books. She has found that the books are her perfect media, and provides her with inspiration and creativity. Kate tends to stick to simple folds or cuts through the books, these simple manipulations transform the old books from carriers of text to objects of art.
For Kate it is the aesthetics of old books that encourages the creativity within, their old musty smells and textures, followed by their stained pages. Kate transforms the books into individual sculptures, many unique designs, which enable the books to be admired. The story now becomes abstract, as the viewer begins to pick out the words and letters in the books new form.
As a book artist or more a book sculpture Kate regularly attends book fairs, all over the country, participating in the International Book Fair at Leeds, to BABE down in Bristol.
Kate is forever pushing the boundaries and physicality's of a book and she is continuously finding new ways to alter and transform them. The possibilities are endless, and Kate believes that books will always form a strong part of her artistic career.
Micc Burgess (Macarbe Macclesfield)
Micc is an artist who works in a variety of media including painting, screenprinting, mixed media, graffiti and assemblage.
He has previously worked with discarded materials to produce his art, and his work often has a raw, industrial feeling to it.
He is much inspired by artists like Robert Rauschenberg or Jasper Johns who used unusual materials to say something interesting about the world. His themes are diverse and eclectic, often exploring extreme images, but often with a humorous or witty twist.
Fi Burke
Fi's work is influenced by Eastern Philosophies and encourages finding simplicity from the seemingly complex, to value the transient, and to question relationships with language and belief systems, regardless of religion.
She often uses the mediums of flour and bread to explore both the ephemerality and permanence of thoughts; how everyday thinking can become a 'nutritional' diet - habitual and 'ingested' without question - just like the daily slice.
The photographic flourscapes are created in flour beds which are evocative of Zen gardens - they are a place where 'raking' and 'sifting' can take place to facilitate openness to new 'mindscapes'.
Dave Butcher (Focus Photography exhibition)
Internationally acclaimed and admired for his stunning images, photographer, printer and author, Dave Butcher uses his thirty years of experience and knowledge of traditional darkroom skills to great effect, producing breathtaking photographs.
Working exclusively in black and white, Dave produces dramatic landscapes, cityscapes and costal shots. He chooses black and white because it is such a powerful medium to convey drama and atmosphere, allowing the viewer to consider the images in terms of shapes, patterns, brightness and tone.
Dave is showcasing his cityscapes part of Focus. The selected body of works encapsulates Dave's style, focusing on architectural angles and shapes formed in black and white.
Dave Butcher's images are used for advertising and P.R and he has also published a number of books of his own. He is an Ilford Master printer and is an Associate of the Royal Photographic Society.
Dave Butcher | Photographer | Derbyshire
Brut Carniollus (Focus photography exhibition)
These painterly images of cars express the hunger for beauty in every form and shape that drives Brut's creative process, consisting of finding uncommon views of things ordinary.
Being essentially a collector, Brut finds photography to be the perfect media, as it gives him a tool to harvest images almost unconsciously. Collected pictures are then, and not so seldom years after being taken, tweaked, processed, twisted, mixed, collaged and abused to the point of revealing what appears to be their inner collective image. Which quite so often takes a look of an ordinary snapshot, but almost never is.
Despite extensive use of computers and insane amounts of post-processing, photography perceived as an impression of light remains the main source of Brut's artistic creation and helps to create these almost painterly images of cars.
Brut Carniollus | Photographer & Collector | Slovenia
Stephen Connell (Focus photography exhibition)
Wasted Light
Within cities and industrial areas our view of the night sky is often obscured by industrial and domestic pollution, and a combination of the street and lighting which is employed to keep our infrastructures running 24 hours a day.
Initially intended to draw the viewers' attention to 'light pollution' and filmed in the dead of night, Stephen Connell's photographs reveal a nocturnal world of spectacular landscapes.
Using exposures of up to 30 minutes to capture the dark landscapes, the photo's reveal the drifting of smoke and steam into the atmosphere and the movement of the stars at night. Artificial man made buildings that appear grey and menacing by day, are transformed into ethereal and un-worldly wonderlands.
Words by 20-21 Visual Arts Centr
Wasted light is winner of the public choice award for ImagineAIR - Air & Cities category
Stephen Connell | Photographer | Sheffield
John Crux (The Collection)
John originally began taking photos 2 and a half years ago when he first began travelling. Since then he has travelled almost continuously around Asia and Australasia, practicing photography as much as possible along the way. John is exhibiting pictures from rural Australia and New Zealand. capturing scenes that most tourists don't get to see, and visitng the more remote areas of the world.
Caroline Dangerfield (Cheshire Open Studios)
Caroline has always been influenced by the landscape, particularly
around the coast. Recently she has begun to explore elements within the
landscape, in particular stones and trees. She paints in a fresh vibrant
way, exploring surface quality and texture, reworking colours and
marks. The resulting lines and contours build pictures which have a
strong sense of movement.
Emily Davenport (Portfolio)
Born in a small village in Staffordshire, Emily cultivated a passion for drawing and painting from an early age. She studied an eclectic combination of fine art and mathematics at St Martin's College in Lancaster, going on to specialise in lino printing in her final year, and achieving a first class honours in art.
Confidence often grows with age, and this is certainly true of Emily who, upon leaving university - despite encouragement from the Arts Council - found marketing herself and her work too challenging. Instead, she chose to pursue a career in publishing, only printing in her spare time. Now, fifteen years on, with more life and work experience - and with the addition of three children - Emily feels up to the challenge.
Emily has a passion for the outdoors and for architecture. She loves to observe the beauty within her surroundings, both with colour and form, but most importantly, with texture. And this is what makes her prints unique; each print relies on different textures to create the image. Particularly with her single colour prints, with the absence of colour changes or strong lineal forms, texture alone is utilised to portray its subject.
Her early work concentrated on architecture within the landscape and conversely landscape within architecture (glimpsed through a window). More recently, Emily has studied wildlife and is enjoying depicting the texture of fur, and further examining the challenges of using a single colour. Initially she sketches from a photograph, traces this onto lino and then cuts out the white/pale areas of the image. She prints onto paper using an old printing press, originally used for typesetting in a commercial printer workshop.
For more information like Emily Davenport Printmaker on Facebook.
Charlotte Davies (The Collection)
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Charlotte's work is engaging and classically different in the way that she explores different themes and projects. Still life photography being one of her favourite genres as it gives her the oppurtunity to create and use a subject that means something to Charlotte in particular. Charlotte is currently studying photography at Manchester Metropolitan university as it has been a definitive passion of hers for a number of years.
Charlotte is a passionate and hardworking student that enjoys being creative in all aspects of her life. She enjoys being able to stage an image and create something that represents her as a person. By being creative Charlotte can explore aspects of society that would normally have been disregarded which is what she finds so interesting. Charlotte's work involves lots of juxtapositions and contrasts that she aims to conceptually create.
Sam Devereux (Works | FOUR - Barnaby Festival 2013) 
Samuel Devereux, born in Macclesfield, is now based in Glasgow, Scotland.
He is currently studying Sculpture and Environmental Art at Glasgow School of Art.
For the exhibition at Marburae Art Gallery, Samuel presents a body of two-dimensional works, in varying media that have formed a part of his wider practice over the past year.
Sam asks the questions to what extent can we see the processes of making as transpersonal experience? And how can making continue to question, in a world so ever-increasingly dominated by the image?
A selection of 2d works and photography (taken using a Mamiya camera) will be used to explore these questions.
Emotion Driven Process Based Parallel Identities (Up & Coming)
Emotion Driven Process Based Parallel Identities is an international South London based artist's collective that employs a completely non-exclusive approach: neighbours, strangers, friends and lovers.
Their marker pen drawings are made collaboratively, with as many as 30 people having worked on a single piece.
People's immediate and varying perspectives clash, interweave and tangle into a 'tapestrial' zeitgeist.
For more information please visit:
Ellie Geary (Gifted)
Ellie Geary is a visual artist based in the East Midlands with a first class BA in Fine Art from Nottingham Trent University. In 2009 she was awarded a scholarship to study for a month in Seoul, South Korea where she had the opportunity to get involved in eastern Asia's rich culture, meeting other contemporary artists, students and visiting professionals' studios. Since graduating in 2010 she has worked as an artist, exhibited, undertaken voluntary work in galleries across the UK and worked as an artist assistant. She is currently working on a magazine project that profiles young creative talent and aims to to expand collaborative opportunities between art and design disciplines.
Ellie creates mixed media artworks and installation pieces primarily from collage, paper, paint and fabric. With collage, disparate images are subjected to new environments and interactions through a removal from their original context into a structure of my choosing. Ellie is strongly concerned with colour, character and texture- these tactile qualities lay not only within the image's information but the paper and print quality itself. She tries to reflect on the intimacy of collage through her installation work by addressing information in the two dimensional imagery and bringing it into our physical plane.
Such intangible notions of comfort reference the human need for personal space and Ellie is interested in how this conflicts with opposing views of desire and longing. Currently my practice explores the idea of anti-sentimentality and fragile trepidation within satirical play. http://elliegeary.carbonmade.com/about
Bob Gelsthorpe (Abstracted)
Born in 1990, in Blackpool, Bob went on to study Art & Design at Blackpool & Fylde College and is currently studying BA (Hons) Fine Art at University of Wales Institute, Cardiff.
Bob's practice exists between aesthetics and linguistics; he addresses the intimate space in between painting and poetry, in a manner of mark based responses in way of channeling the idiosyncratic appeal of poetry and the exciting nature of working visually. The paintings exhibited as part of Abstracted are looking at the poetic side of synaesthesia (a union of the senses), from a personal point of view. They were all painted in a response to Bob's own poetry written around the Lake District, which in an emotional sense makes them quite internal, but also aesthetically accessible as sensory objects.
Sophie Gibson (Focus photography exhibition)
120's & Polaroid's
"Sophie's work first caught my eye for its nostalgic feel, evoking childhood memories of holiday locations.
The selection chosen for Focus brings these childhood memories to the fore but mixes them with hints of teenage nights out and the following odd blurred memory!
The combination of the grungy subject matter and the works being created with a selection of 120 film and Polaroids creates a worn feel, documenting lost warm days and sweaty band nights.
Whenever Sophie leaves the house for a day she takes a camera but if she leaves for more than one day she takes a selection of cameras. This process allows a diverse, collective approach to her photography"
Kaite Helps | Marburae Art Gallery
Sophie Gibson | Photographer | Lancashire
Ross Gibson (The Collection)
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Chris Godber (Macarbe Macclesfield)
Chris is inspired by a lot of modernist painting and often work with a modernist aesthetic, utilising abstraction and distortion in an attempt to heighten the impact of an image.
Some particular painters who have inspired him include Picasso for his cubist work, Van Gogh for his confident handling of paint and intense portrayal of nature, Joan Miro for his biomorphic abstractions and a whole host of expressionists, surrealists and abstract painters.
Chris' work often explores an inner world of abstracted shapes and what he calls an interior landscape which he thinks of as the landscape of the mind. Chris tries not to work from subject matter and will most often start with an initial visualisation or idea in his mind which he will then expand on as he works. While some of my Chris' work is purely abstract and non-objective there are often subtle hints at representational imagery, like images glimpsed then forgotten as in a dream.
Some reoccurring themes in Chris' work include portraying nature, distorting the figure and expressing negative and positive emotion as well as exploring dream landscapes.
Laura Havenhand (Up & Coming)
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After studying at Leeds Metropolitan University Laura had her first solo show at The Bowery Gallery in Leeds. Since then Laura has been making new work, and recently became the curator of Blott studios.
There are two strands of Laura's work exhibited here. The first focuses on socio-political themes, with particular reference to modern class systems and subjugation. The portraits in this series are of refused asylum seekers who have used themselves as tools to protest with against asylum laws in the UK. The paintings are constructed by the layering of one singular image, the silhouette of a man. Laura has used semiotic language to act suggestively of the desired interpretation, indicative of a multi faceted reality, rich with hidden agendas and visible elucidation.
The second body of work is the 'Madelena' series. Very much a progression from Laura's earlier works, as it still focused on refused asylum seekers but the position of women in the process was prominent this time. This series came after Laura worked at a charity called Parfras in Leeds. The paintings here are also built up out of the silhouette of a man but they are left unfinished to implore more feminist undertones, and the fact that these particular women had been raped in the UK. For more information on Laura's work, please visit: http://www.laurahavenhand.co.uk/
Di Harding (Macarbe Macclesfield)
Di Harding's work is influenced by her surroundings, the constantly changing environment and the images and colours of nature.
The vibrancy of colour appeals to Di's creativity as she feels that nothing in nature is black and white.
Di plays with texture and light in her work, combining contrasting materials such as felt, for its softness and diversity, glass for its clarity
Kaite Helps (Up & Coming)
Kaite is a freelance artist based in Cheshire (Uk)
Kaite's current work is inspired by her recent travels to India and South East Asia. Her paintings are a personal perception of the cultures and variety experienced whilst exploring the region. Kaite draws on the colours, patterns, and architecture from various cultures and religions during her travels and they feature heavily within Kaite's work, allowing her to recreate the richness and atmospheres of such diverse and different places. Process is also very important to Kaite and she wishes for it to remain as true to her subject matter as possible.
Kaite creates her own watercolours made from spices and powders bought from various parts of the world during her travels. Kaite works predominantly with Saffron but also uses many more 'pigments' such as Turmeric, Indigo and Vermillion Powder. The later is a powder placed along the parting of the hair by Hindi women to represent marriage.
Born in Bristol in 1987, Kaite went on to study Fine Art at Clitheroe Royal Grammar VIth Form where she received 100% in her Art A-level, one of only five people in the country to do so. Kaite continued her studies at the University of Plymouth and was awarded a First Class Honours Degree. Kaite's work has been successfully displayed in Calcutta, India, Switzerland, Liverpool, Plymouth, Bristol, Bath, Sheffield, Lancashire and Buckinghamshire, she even has work in space, aboard the SpaceArc! For more information about Kaite's work, please visit: http://www.kaitehelps.co.uk/
Aimie Hertog (Focus, Photography exhibition)
Coney Island
In her photographs of Coney Island, Aimee exaggerates the colour and focal point, often a cartoon like image, through digital manipulation.
As a result, familiar signs in the park to render a sense of the timeless, the excessive and the fantastical as seen through Aimee's adult eyes.
In Aimee's initial artistic endeavours she did not understand the value of using found objects. After becoming a mother, however, she was forced to employ more material items in her daily life. She began recycling utilitarian objects into her art, creating sculptural forms from discarded clothing, kitchenware and other commonplace materials. Influenced by Joseph Cornell's work with found objects and frequent viewings of Alexander Calder's Circus, responding to its gritty playfulness.
Ultimately Aimee realised the importance of aligning the content of her art with the materials used to construct it. With this in mind, Aimee's sculptures, with seemingly cheerful household objects
become grotesque creature-like forms and this direction flows through her photography of Coney Island, (even the name itself evokes an eerie, unrealistic feel) where simple, child like found images are transformed into grotesque, nightmare like images.
Aimee has just had her work selected for the 3rd Juried photography exhibition in New York.
The New York based exhibition will take place over the same dates as Focus
The 3rd Juried photography exhibition has been curated by Nat Trotman, Curator of the Solomon R, Guggenheim Museum since 2001 and collates the works of 25 outstanding photographers from America and abroad. Aimee states 'It is a real honour to even be selected'
Aimee Hertog | Photographer and sculptor | America
Thom Hudson (The Collection)
Thom's artwork centers on the process of understanding his surroundings and his place within them. He walks and watches his environment, observing and analysing to develop a connection with where he is.
Charles Baudelaire writes of the flâneur, a lone figure able to breeze through a landscape, watching, absorbing and understanding, resisting the urge to attempt to define beauty by any conventional picture postcard ideal. One must allow the time and the required sensitivity to extract the elegance and grace from the scenes you may see, the scenes of our everyday surroundings in which we live our lives. Each image created is a pure entity in itself, the photos taken proving that this beauty is real, lying in wait for us to open our eyes and find it, and for a brief moment bask in its fleeting, fragile beauty.
'The photographer is an armed version of the solitary walker reconnoitering, stalking, cruising the urban inferno, the voyeuristic stroller who discovers the city as a landscape of voluptuous extremes. Adept of the joys of watching, connoisseur of empathy, the flâneur finds the world 'picturesque.'
Susan Sontag,On Photography.1977
Each artwork that Thom will be exhibiting is part of individual series of images taken during the last two years, taken in Tokyo. Each series of Thom's projects draws on elements of memory and mans connection to the land and the ideas surrounding landscape painting and photography. They are as much a discussion about the process of looking and photographing and the relationship between the photographer and the scene, as they are about our connections with the places in which we live.
For further information please feel free to visit Thom's website at: www.thomhudsonart.com