Exhibitions at Ashdown Gallery
2012
17th May - 5th June
7th - 26th June
28th June - 17th July
Marion Brandis
19th July - 11th September
Summer exhibition
13th September - 2nd October
Solo Show
4th - 23rd October
Solo Show
25th October - 20th November
Solo Show
Adam Barnes
22nd November - 8th January
Textiles
2013
10th - 29th January
Solo Show
31st January - 19th February
Nature:
Gill Bustamente
Lois Sykes
21st February - 12 March
Solo Show
Carne Griffiths
Current Exhibition
Sculptures: Tania Babb
Paintings: Cathie Hubert
Tania Babb
In the realm of my own personal creative process, I have no earth shattering statement to make. I do not have any highly intellectualised reason for doing what I do, in fact, the whole process seems to bypass my intellect altogether. I do what I do because of a nameless urge to venerate what I perceive as life affirming sentiments. Perhaps if you scratched a little bit deeper you may find that this urge comes from the juxtaposition of life and death in my own life. Life when juxtaposed to death is vibrant and it is the small things that speak volumes. Life, death and love are all that matters really.
In the realm of my work in relation to my contemporaries and the ceramics world that I am exposed to, I do have opinions. Coming from a fine art and graphics background, ceramics presented itself to me as another medium in which to express myself. It soon became apparent to me that a lot of other ceramicists approached ceramics from another angle altogether. It is mystifying to me how firmly ceramics is tied to the functional. Such a forgiving, plastic medium is pregnant with possibility for rampant creativity and still my contemporaries seem to be hooked into always creating something, if not functional then a representation of something functional. A bowl. A teapot. A jug, that doesn’t actually work, but through it’s form these ceramic pieces pay homage to pottery’s functional roots. I don’t mean to be irreverent but just feel we are hobbling the potential of this medium by not liberating it from the functional.
Having said that, there are very honourable sentiments surrounding the functional in ceramics. The humility of enhancing ones day-to-day experiences, by using beautiful ceramic crockery. There is almost an eastern reverence in appreciating the importance of beauty in small and humble everyday objects. I can relate to this and respect this. Am I being too ambitious wanting to lift ceramics out of the secular? Into the realm of fine art?
I have grown very disillusioned with what I have seen happening in the hallowed annuls of fine art. It has swum too far into intellectual seas for my sensibilities. There is a place for the intellectual, but when it let’s go of the anchor of being firstly and lastly a visual experience it has moved onto being something other than art. What is revealed to the viewer via mark making or sculpting needs to have more mystery and be more open to interpretation of visual stimuli for any surface to truly be visual art. The viewer needs to have more leverage to interact with an art piece than I feel is currently the case. n one leaves this continent for a while and then comes back does one recognise a subtle but pervasive energy, for want of a better word, that seems to emanate from the surface of this continent. Permeating it’s flora it’s fauna and it’s people. This vitality may very well be a subjective experience but I do see evidence of this in the creativity, particularly ceramics. The colours, the vibrancy, the fresh and new surfaces, the immediacy, to me are all evidence rawness that I feel is unfettered and untempered by hundreds of years of years of civilisation. There is also fertility derived from a cross pollination of cultures which I feel makes South African ceramics unique and globally exciting.
Cathie Hubert
"I am exhibiting my new seascapes (based on cloud and water study) and my colourful warm palette knife landscapes, so there are two moods in that exhibition. I have always been going back and forth from the mist and beauty of the Brittany Sea to the colorful joyful dry scenes of the mediterranean landscapes. My heart is somewhere in between ... so is my Art" Cathie Hubert
For Cathie Hubert, Form is an excuse to experiment with colour, she likes to plunge into colour , lose herself in it. This is the main axis of her creative work. She often uses primary bright vibrant colours; to express the feelings she experiences when she looks at the world. She needs to represent nature in the most intense manner possible.
Her influences are Derain and the Fauvists, Gauguin, Van Gogh, Cezanne, the Expressionists, Matisse, Hockney, and Nicolas de Stael, “ Les peintres de la Marine” in France, Chagall and Raphael.
"Cathie Hubert’s Art is uplifting to the spirit and soothing to the soul at the same time. Spontaneous and instinctive, interpreting her inner child through bold, defiant strokes of expressive and warm colours, she crystallizes emotions. Passion breaks like waves on her seascapes, my personal favourites. She has inspired me in my work."
Dorothee Dillon
Interior Designer LA
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Previous Exhibitions
Rosie Birtwhistle / Anne Marie Brody / Anna Rigano
Rosie Birtwhistle
Rosie’s paintings have always been about pattern.
Not just pattern as ornament, but because patterns make good symbols for our complex lives: repetition, rhythm, harmonies and balance, and then broken patterns, fragments and connections.
She is fascinated by our world with its technology and its over-regulation, and says she paints so she can see what she thinks, a process of observation that goes beyond the visual. She loves telling stories about the way we treat our cars as people and our gardens as embroidery, how we combine our surroundings and ourselves into an animated composite.
Perhaps we do that to play games, maybe to hide, maybe to reveal ourselves to ourselves. Rosie is continually devising metaphors for this hide-and-seek, to deepen our sense of mystery as well as to reveal the normal.
The work is detailed and intimate, inviting the viewer into the pictures to experience them as puzzles or as meditational games. They are carefully crafted, taking time to evolve, hopefully triggering amusement and interest in a different point of view.
Anne Marie Brody
I love drawing and the more I draw something the more I see it. Most of my work begins with observational drawings and then I use colour and texture to express my response to what I see. I am interested in the point at which the outer workd meets the inner one.
I studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art and Eastbourne College of Art and Technology. I teach art at The Central Sussex College, Felbridge Watercolour Group and do workshops in drawing and watercolour for the Ashdown Gallery.
In 2001 I founded Art22, now in its tenth year; the group has been well received by the public and artists alike for their strong and diverse work. I am also a member of Ashdown Arts.
I have exhibited all over the South East including several exhibitions at Chequer Mead in East Grinstead. I have been a regular participant in the Eastbourne Open Studios and the Lingfield Exhibition and as well as exhibiting at The Crypt in Seaford, the Thebes Gallery in Lewes, and Planahead in Eastbourne. I participated in the Lindfield Festival in 2010 and exhibited at Dick Chester Studio in Forest Row with Artworks which is part of Ashdown Arts. I have also exhibited with Ashdown Arts in Forest Row during April and November 2011.
Anna Rigano
"I am constantly moved by the beauty I see all around me and feel a desire mixed with a compulsion to emulate this beauty in my paintings."
I was born in the Dolomites, a stones-throw away from Titian’s mountain village. From an early age I drew and painted. I wanted to go to Art School but there wasn’t one where we lived, so ended up studying Modern Languages which brought me to expatriate in my early twenties. I lived in the South of France for about 8 years where I painted with established local artists. I have now been living in the UK for the last 16 years.
Painting is one of my enduring passions.
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Claire Fearon
Claire Fearon is a contemporary British artist who has exhibited nationally and internationally. Her work is also in private collections from the New York to Tokyo. Claire is well known for her bright abstract paintings the content of which she drew entirely from her imagination. Earlier this year saw a departure from this way of working and a new body of work began to emerge based on skylines, land and seascapes. She has been working on these themes to produce a new series of paintings for her exhibition in April.
‘I have been painting abstract paintings for over 15 years but I was starting to get tired of only painting what was occurring in my own mind. I wanted to step outside of myself and try something different, push my boundaries and my own personal expectations. I have been very much drawn to painting skylines and quiet, empty, almost stark landscapes and seascapes. I try to make the paintings powerful yet at the same time I like to think they resonate a certain peace and tranquility. I love the feelings of stillness and space they evoke. I feel I can better express how I feel through these landscapes than I could via my abstract work and can’t believe it’s taken me so long to step into the world of landscape painting. However I am sure my experience of working with colour and acrylics over so many years has influenced these new works continuation of my creative journey.’
Claire Fearon. March 2012
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Robert Meldrum
Born in February 1972, Robert Meldrum's paintings are a meditation on the landscape around where he lives in West
Sussex.
“Although I would say reading inspires me, I can never listen to the radio whilst painting. I get lost in the images and they become my sole company for the day. I always like to be surprised by the images and I love the jolts they produce when they come into view. So I paint trees, clouds and flyovers and the light from the Airport at night, finding complexity within them... Jean-Luc Goddard once said: ‘all you need is a girl and a gun to make a film’ and with this in mind I have often used the most simple elements of the English landscape tradition in order to refresh it.”
Meldrum's influences are grounded in American painters like Rauschenberg, Johns and Guston and use similar domestic paints influenced from the Neo Dada movement to his love of Graffiti. This also allows him to be less precious about using traditional painter’s materials allowing him to experiment more in the process.
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Richard Heys
I am an artist, teacher and lecturer. I principally create paintings, but also work in the following media: drawing, printmaking and sculpture. I run painting and drawing workshops, and teach the history of art to both children and adults. I live and work in East Sussex, England, on the edge of the ancient Ashdown Forest. I was born and raised on a farm in West Yorkshire, close to Dovestones reservoir and the moors of the Peak District.
I describe myself as an abstract artist, although landscapes I have visited and grown up with inform my imaginations and resurface again and again in my work.
As a painter I live with many questions; why do I feel driven to engage in this ‘timeless dialogue’, this age-old preoccupation with colour and feeling? I create paintings which reflect and inform my experience of living. When I paint, I dip into the essential, streaming creativity of the human spirit. I feel intensely alive, and work with all my interest thrown forwards into the future, I’m aware, listening out, and looking out for the magic. I want to surprise myself and reach new conclusions, creating images which engage and warm the inner world of the viewer.
Keats spoke of the value of ‘negative capability’ and my aim is to develop this into a capacity as I work. Maintaining an ambivalent, questioning approach to outer and inner phenomena whilst engaged in the act of painting, leads me through a surprising process of discovery and also to surprising results. I strive to reach beyond my subjective imagination to discover transformations, new solutions and colour atmospheres.
Working with many media, I explore transparent luminosity, textures, multiple layers of colours and glazes. I also work consciously with the substance of the paint itself and the tensions within its makeup. I aim to produce work with a variety of colour conversations, movements and dynamics that will resonate with others and enliven the environment in which they are seen.
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John Scarland
"In a previous life I was a gardener and a carpenter. Now I am a painter, an explorer and one who weaves strands of life into pictures."
The beginnings of my art were founded in traditional watercolour using the landscape as a motif. Soon intensive life drawing studies and development work on how to respond to my fellow being was addressed. As the figure work expanded so did the media employed.
As for my subject, it majors on the body, the dance and figures engaged in social interaction. All the time I am seeking ways to portray the awareness of 'being' in the first person alongside the observation and sensation of emotional interactions in others.
"Art took me in the late eighties. In a previous life I was a gardener and a carpenter, now I am a painter, an explorer and one who weaves strands of life into pictures. The early 90’s found me preoccupied with a search to find a visual model that would display the phenomena we call touch. It was easy to draw two people touching as viewed by a third party, but to deliver the sensation of touching and being touched via the retina instead of the nerve endings proved an engaging problem. This type of problem solving has always driven creativity in me, forcing visual and conceptual
experimentation with line and colour.
Drawing and painting over the years has revealed a clear rapport with the fragile and the vulnerable. A sensitivity to the harsh nature of reality and the need for protection and nurture runs through all the work. Elijah the prophet, when in dire need was given raisin cake by an angel because as he said ‘the journey was too hard for you’. Elijah’s strength was restored. Some pieces of the work may act as a restorative.
Early drawings often show guardians; lightweight figures connected to ultimate power that allow them to stand relaxed in total confidence. In their own right to begin with and later in supporting roles. Transferred care is a classic work in this
vein. The mother and child theme reflects the needs of the vulnerable and the sense of attachment we all long for. The motif saw many extensions and variations that often resonated with others who saw them.
These works are about our basic requirement; shelter and security while we live in a hazardous place. It is angel cake for common people."
text from 'Gap in the fence' ©John Scarland
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Cathryn Kemp
Cathryn Kemp is currently Artist-In-Residence at Saint Ronan's School in Hawhurst and has won several awards including from Arts Council England and the London Art Board.
She works mainly in textiles, printmaking and photography but a passion for painting lies at the heart of Kemp's practice. Ashdown Gallery is proud to present works from her rarely-seen White Paintings series, the first time these works have been shown together in the UK.
When working with textiles, Cathryn explores narratives around female identity and rites of passage. Her work deconstructs and reconstructs notions of femininity using vintage garments, with reference to emotional lineage and genealogy. Her findings are recorded and archived as museum pieces.
www.cathrynkemp.com
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Winter Exhibition
Ashdown Gallery 2011 Christmas Show
2nd December-11th January 2012
Celebrating one year of - paintings : sculpture : ceramics : textile : art workshops : jewellery : glass work : handmade artisan & fair trade gifts...
We are celebrating our first anniversary on Friday December 2nd.
In the last 12 months we have unsupported organised:
20 1-day art workshops with a different artist teaching each time and 10 ongoing 10-week art workshops. 12 art exhibitions -altogether showing the work of more than 40 artists and artisans, one youth exhibition, one auction, one cinema stills exhibition for the FR film society, two novelty jewellery exhibitions, two book launches, one Virginia Woolf week, one special 3D furniture design exhibition and much much more...
Thanks to all our artists, designers, photographers, art teachers, visitors, supporters and friends who have joined us and are continually supporting us on our quest.
The Ashdown Gallery Team: Cathie Hubert & Mette Udsholt, supported by our wonderful bookkeeper, adviser, art lover and friend Dorien Slinger wishes all of you much creativity and success in the year to come!
Merry Christmas and a happy New Year 2012
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Paintings & Ceramics
Jane Gray
Sarah Rickard
Jane Gray
Whilst recognising that artifice is a survival tool and is also one of power, I try to see past the facades of myself, of others and my surroundings to find the essence – delving into chaos – to glimpse the true nature of the subject. In this way the essence is perceived.
I seek to express this perception through the style of painting that I call Organic Expressionism where my paintings evolve rather than are preconceived.
The paintings are built up through many layers of different materials and glazes in order to express the depth and complexity that constitutes our journey through life. All are abstractions to a greater or lesser degree.
I have been influenced by everything under the sun, but particularly the work of Kandinsky, Rauschenburg, Frankenthaler, Rothko, Abstract Expressionism, Symbolism and the Bauhaus.
Sarah Rickard
After completing a B.A.(Hons) degree in Comtemporary Craft fromManchester Metropolitan University in 1996 where she specialised in ceramics and textiles, Sarah set up her own studio and has been working as an artist ever since. She has concentrated on painting and ceramics and has exhibited in galleries around the country although since having a family, ceramics has become her main focus.
Inspiration comes from the natural world and its inhabitants and the cyclic nature of life and she aims to create work which expresses her view of the earth as being sacred and magical.
Pieces normally start life as a painting or drawing but sometimes just an idea inspires her ceramics. She works in earthenware and stoneware rolling all sorts of materials and objects into the clay to create different textures and effects. Sometimes she creates flat pieces or plates and sometimes more sculptural work. Designs are scratched into the clay, oxides and slips are then painted on before firing and a clear glaze being applied.
Sarah works from her studio in Heathfield, East Sussex where she lives with her husband, two young daughters and two cats.
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Previous Exhibitions
Paintings & Ceramics
Chetana Thornton
Yolande Beer
Chetana Thornton
These paintings began life as a poem, prayer or meditation, teased into energetic synthesis, through colour, texture and light. They are reflections on a nuclear perspective. I feel more curiously engaged with the process of painting than a final goal, which is, ever the great unknown this is the unfolding mystery and the joy.
To me painting is an unveiling, that can reveal and reflect the timeless presence hidden within the appearance of form. This kind of exploration openly invites us into the fullness of this present moment, inducing a shift in perspective. Allowing the mind to turn inward to stillness, the return to alert awareness. The focus of my recent series depicts the Abyss, the edge of time, internal worlds collapsing in on them-selves, dissolving form falling back into primal Origin. Whilst the figurative work plays with light, reflecting movement, and emotive motion passing in energetic synthesis.
The work conveys the dance between infinite potential, and the arising of raw expression, inviting an open dialogue bringing awareness into how we are conditioned to see, and interpret what we experience through our unique lens, the paintings are said ‘to lean towards abstract impressionism, but visionary in their theme of utopic worlds and inner realms'.
Colour for me is the language of life and creation; a significant communicator. The canvas is a screen on which the infinite dances, revealing secret, glimpses of images passing through in motion, impermanent, boundless.
Ultimately all my explorations in paint are openings, to seeing from beyond the outward appearance. Painting happens through me as the instrument I attempt to communicate the unknowable, revealing the force of life itself.
Yolande Beer
Sussex-born, Yolande studied Three-Dimensional Design in Brighton. A love for ceramics and a flair for life drawing led her to decorate pots, platters and tiles with lively and flowing figures.
After five years as an established and recognised Brighton studio-potter, she was awarded sponsorship to travel to Japan. Here she spent a year and a half brush-decorating tableware and preparing for a solo show in Tokyo. A subtle Japanese influence is still visible in her work today.
Since her return to England in 1989, Yolande has featured in numerous shops and exhibitions, and has even collaborated with The Body Shop in the realm of shop display. Married to a furniture maker, she is now settled in a converted barn in Five Ashes, East Sussex, where she pots, sells and teaches from home.
Recent years have seen Yolande enjoying the teaching side of her profession – both as an accomplished ceramics teacher at St Leonards Mayfield School and currently in her private and popular Adult Education classes, which take place in her studio.
Yolande specialises in brightly coloured earthenware, durable stoneware and figurative carvedware. She currently exhibits her unique work in her showroom at home and annually in the Brighton Festival and The Oxmarket Centre in Chichester.
Lately she has been focusing on larger works such as carved murals, and is always happy to make to order.
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Paintings & Ceramics
Bleau-Shanay Hudson
Naomi Wirthner/Studio 18
Bleau-Shanay Hudson
Bleau was surrounded by the Sussex countryside from an early age. Her mother’s creativity inspired Bleau to express herself through art and she went on to study Art and Photography at GCSE and A Level. Throughout her education Bleau was inspired by nature for her art work and began producing her own work at home, experimenting with various materials.
Bleau has been an artist for 3 years and has exhibited in East Grinstead, Tunbridge Wells and Lewes. She has also participated in several Art festivals where she has immediately sold her work. Inspired by local woodlands and trees, Bleau aims to interpret the detail, essence and magic of nature and trees within her collages.
Working on canvas, Bleau uses a variety of materials and techniques, including organic materials such as pressed leaves and natural papers in her work. Bleau continues working on her art while pursuing her career with The National Trust and takes a lot of inspiration from Ashdown Forest and Sheffield Park Garden.
Naomi Wirthner and Studio 18
Studio 18 is a collective of potters and artists who work from a studio in Forest Row.
"We come together once a week.. sharing ideas inspiration and alot of coffee...we work on our individual themes which consistantly emerge even as we attempt to break our own moulds, and it is exciting to see our work progress...evolve and also sometimes shatter as we pot side by side.
This exhibition will show pieces that have developed as we have taken on working with a new Raku kiln. Indicative of our process we are learning about working with the fire in a very "hands on" way...as our singed knuckles will testify! We believe in trial and error... alot of experimentation...and often offer up our pieces to the goddess of flames with a practised non attachment that does us proud.
This collection evolved from an unplanned cohesiveness, some of that dictated by the raku firing that burns its identity on the fragile vessels, but also a simpatico that seems to spread as we work litrally side by side in the studio."
studio 18
Caroline Durance
Refers to her pieces as 'free flowing vessels of energy'. When seen together we see the dance of perpetual motion.
They are involved in an exchange of receiving and offering.
Helen Ashton
Often works in porcelain or paper porcelain. These pieces are an installation of containers made from the extremely delicate paper porcelain. It is a miracle that these fragile shells survived the rage of a raku firing.
Naomi Wirthner
Also a painter alongside her work with ceramics...sometimes the two mediums meet. She is currently sending painted messages on clay. She particularly loves the poetry of the raku fire...how its fierceness confronts and transforms a gesture in clay into a burnt jewel.
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3D Furniture and Craft Show
Colin Watmough - Furniture Designer
Lives and works in Forest Row. He designs and makes his beautiful panels and tables in his Highgates Workshop.
For the past 25 years Colin has been creating images in wood using a mix of common and unusual veneers, utilising their individual grain and colour. The wild grain of certain types of burr can reflect the form and texture of the riverbed or a sandy rock pool. Certain woods will flicker with iridescence in changing light and give life to simple fish shapes or leaves. Lighter, fine-grained veneers of sycamore, box, pear and beech, lightly scorched at the edges appear like stones and pebbles.
Mark Haughton green Woodworker and Designer
Mark lives in Forest Row and his workshop is on the grounds of Tablehurst Biodynamic Farm.
My work includes tables, chairs, dressers, chests of drawers, corner cupboards, shelving and storage. I have a small but well equipped workshop and access to the best materials and techniques to accomplish almost any job involving wood. As a specialist in meeting customers' particular needs I like finding good design solutions and can draw on my experience to achieve real quality.
All my work is seen through by me from the first meeting with a client, to delivery and completion. I present clear designs and samples, and comprehensive and free quotations before any work is carried out, so that customers can feel confident they are getting what they want.
Charles Thomson Fine Furniture Designer and maker
Charles lives and works in his home made Barn conversion with Design studio and workshop in Mayfield East Sussex.
Carefully Selected local Sussex Hardwoods are converted into Charles' unique new Designs.The Pieces are tailormade and eco friendly. Award winning inspired Designs and Hand- made from personally selected woods.
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YOUTH EXHIBITION
25 young people from 12 to 18 years old are exhibiting their work this week end until Sunday 4pm at the Ashdown Gallery.
This is the Ashdown Gallery's contribution to the Forest Row Festival!
Private view for young people Friday the 30th of Sept from 6pm to 8pm
Unique opportunuty for the young artists to show and sell their work!
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Painting & Mixed Media
Lee Hannam & Marije Rowling
Lee Hannam
'A passion for art and design has taken me on a creative journey from childhood to now and continues unfolding along the way. My work is multi disciplinary, working mainly with drawing and painting in abstract and free form, my subjects varied and ever surprising...'
Lee is a visual artist and graphic designer and worked extensively within the animation industry on varied projects that included film, TV, commercials and video. Also studying multimedia during this time and using the varied disciplines within this framework, produced websites and design based work alongside her animation work.
In 2000 she left the animation industry to pursue her artistic career and went on to study sculpture and painting and now works as a visual artist and designer.
Lee has gone on to exhibit at group and in solo shows, a collection of three of her ‘Creation’ paintings, are on loan to the Royal Brompton Hospital, London.
Marije Rowling
Colour is my medium,
I play and wrestle with it,
I capture human and nature moods with it,
I explore its expressiveness in its palest and darkest extremes; in its contrasts with its purest polarities.
I work it thinly and delicately or lay it on with a palette knife, according to the theme.
I lead it, it leads me.
My work is Colour-based and largely Abstract.
I am inspired by pure Colour interactions, Nature forces, the Seasons, Soul moods, the Zodiac...My painting technique involves working with layers of paint until form, content and colour meet. Watercolour, acrylic and oil-paint offer me different ways to achieve this goal.
I trained as an artist and a teacher in Holland in the 60’s and then spent two very formative years in the 70’s doing the Painting Course at Emerson College and Tobias School of Art and Therapy. I taught Upper School Art and History of Art at Canterbury Steiner School, Tobias School of Art and Emerson College.
Recently I have been solely concentrating on my own work. Since 2002 I have been exhibiting regularly and in 2010 I had a large solo exhibition in Letchworth Garden City.
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Summer Exhibition
23rd July - 8th September
40 artists of the Ashdown Gallery artists are celebrating summer by showing two pieces each in this year’s summer show, from 23 July - 8 September. It is a great opportunity to view and buy many different artists work , those who have already exhibited and those who will exhibit in 2011/2012. The gallery is booked until Jan 2013!
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Embroidered Textiles
Collage & Paint
1st - 20th July
Jacqi Adkins & Jess Levine
Jacqi Adkins
Jacqi has always been a ‘maker of things’. After completion of a BA(Hons) in Embroidered Textiles in 2008 she was selected by the Embroiderer’s Guild to take part in the Graduate Showcase of the Knitting and Stitch Shows later that year and was also selected as a Licentiate Member of the Society of Designer Craftsmen.
After visiting Japan she became interested in the philosophy and ethics of Japanese design concepts these together with the sights of travel deep within the Arctic Circle have jointly given rise to a unique style and use of materials in her embroidery. Her work has fragility and intensity at the same time.
Jacqi works mainly with machine embroidery but also incorporates hand embroidery.
She has exhibited at The Mall Galleries in London, The Knitting and Stitch Shows in Alexander Palace, NEC and Harrowgate Showground together with various local exhibitions in the South East. Her pieces can be found in collections in Japan, USA, Canada and the UK.
Jess Levine
My work stems from various sources which include personal travels, Kentish landscape, current affairs, childhood memories and textile designs.
I don't like to limit myself to one discipline, instead preferring to use a wide range of materials and to draw on a wide variety of sources. However, I often initially explore ideas using collage, as I find this a useful process in realising more finished pieces of work or in translating ideas using paint.
My work is often deliberately open ended in terms of impact. I like the viewer to bring themselves to the piece, rather than having meaning imposed by the maker. In that respect, I like work to be loose and to have a meaning which is beyond intention, that is the piece in a sense answers back to both the viewer and the maker.
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Six Days in Venice - David Catchpole
24th - 30th June
Photography
"In late March this year I arrived in Venice for the first time and it felt like stepping into a masterpiece.
Over the next six days I recorded my impressions as I strolled through narrow alleys and along canals, over bridges and across courtyards from early morning until late in the evening.
This show is an edited snapshot of those images to share my new found love for this city which is so full of beauty, passion, music and colour and also, at times, an incredible stillness which captivated me constantly and held my gaze."
David Catchpole studied Art & Design in Bath before completing a Master of Arts Degree in Photography & Advertising at The London College of Printing.
In 1996 David’s work was selected by a panel of judges for the International Print Exhibition at The Royal Photographic Society and since then he has exhibited extensively throughout Sussex as well as having exhibitions at The Edge Gallery in London and The Angle Gallery in Birmingham.
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Solo Exhibition - Robert Harber
10th - 23rd June
Painting
Robert Harber was born in South Africa and today lives in Danehill, East Sussex.
In the 1950`s his parents enjoyed hosting lively parties for the artistic society of Johannesburg and he was exposed to art in its many forms at an early age.
His military service took him to the desert landscapes of the Kalahari, which have influenced the earthy colours in his paintings. African sculpture also show through in his art.
Later he travelled and lived in several European countries and the Far East, and much of his inspiration comes from the diverse cultures he embraced at that time. Aboriginal art and Far Eastern batik also play a part in his interpretation, which is abstract, colourful and bold.
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Expressive Colour, Perspective & Volcanic Glazes
6th May - 8th June
Painting and Pottery
My work is vessel oriented, consisting of vase, bowl and bottle forms. Thrown and often altered. I enjoy working with soft clay, working fast and not too preciously, allowing the clay to express itself, running my fingers through or denting the finished form. Accidents in the making process and unexpected firing results, I feel, can all enrich the finished piece. I have always had a love for weathered surfaces and my volcanic glazes work well on my thrown forms giving them a soft, natural, eroded look. Colours range from, off whites and stony greys with coppery greens, gritty earth reds and turquoise blues.
I studied at Camberwell College of Art and left with a BA Hons Degree in Ceramics and taught pottery at Putney School of Art, Wandsworth, Kingston and Richmond Adult Education Centres for over 10 years.
Between 1992 and 2005 I ran a pottery studio business in London and sold in Galleries, Exhibitions and Craft Fairs all over the country.
In April this year I opened my new studio in Forest Row, East Sussex and am very excited and inspired with new results and ideas for my work.
Julia has been a professional painter since 1990 and has a successful international career exhibiting in Munich where she lived for 10 years. During this time she also worked on architectural partnership projects, led creative arts holidays in the Appenine Mountains and workshops at Volkshochschule teaching ‘Expressive Use of Colour and Perspective’.
Previous study at The Falmouth School of Art motivated Julias to return to Cornwall in 2005 inspiring her body of work combining the local landscape with structural industrial forms.
From her experience as a carer Julia conceived her internationally recognised ‘arts and health’ courses delivering motivational colour workshops to socially isolated community groups.
Selected for the Battle contemporary Fine Art Fair 2010, Julia was awarded ‘Best Painting’. This selected exhibition had an esteemed board of judges including CAV OMRI Romero Di Girolamo PPRBA, Megan Di Girolamo RBA RBS Guy Portelli VPRBA RBS & Polly Gifford HoE at the iconic De la Warr Pavillion.
Inspired by the Sussex landscape Julia moved to Ashdown Forest earlier this year.
Our "Buy Art Scheme" allows you to take away your favorite piece by leaving a 30% deposit and then pay in instalments!
Simplicity/Mood/Sensory
25th March - 4th May
Painting and Sculpture
Ashdown Gallery is pleased to show the work of two artists with very different backgrounds: Briton Gavin Roweth, who recently left the financial world to dedicate himself full-time to sculpture, and Dane Mette Udsholt, who has a background in film & theatre - one of the founders of the Gallery.
The exhibition has a simple palette with underlying tones of mood - a sensory experience which is bound to make you want to take a deep breath and enjoy the view.
A stone-carving workshop at Tout Quarry on the Isle of Portland in 2005 made up Gavin's mind to make a change after twenty years in the financial markets - since then he has been sculpting full time.
Gavin works principally carving limestone and producing cold cast metal and stone pieces. He enjoys the whole process from design, to clay model, to moulding and then casting and finishing. For him sculpture must appeal visually and be physically tactile. He focuses on engaging the senses whatever the subject matter.
When I was eight, my father gave me a lovely box of oil paints and an easel for Christmas. I had absolutely no idea how to paint with oils and it took me twenty years, having worked my way through watercolours, gouaches, inks and roscoe to sum up the courage. Along the way I had worked and studied art, film and theatre and would say that I nearly always had a pencil and pen or a large paintbrush to hand; so now finally working in oil - which I love - is a natural progression of everything that I have done so far.
I am fascinated by the weather and love to study the sky; often my landscapes are comments on nature's reaction to climate change or just the seasons; how you can look day in and day out at the same view, and the fact that that view is never the same, is a complete mystery to me.
Our "Buy Art Scheme" allows you to take away your favorite piece by leaving a 30% deposit and then pay in instalments!
Happiness, Romance, Colour and Culture
18th February - 24th March
Painting and Papier-mâché Sculptures
An exhibition certain to warm your heart in the mid winter months
Cathie Hubert, Clio Pinkney & Jane Wharrad are putting on a show sure to warm your heart & soul, capture a fleeting moment and tell a small story with exuberant colours & pigments and lots of warm humour at The Ashdown Gallery.
Cathie Hubert is a French painter who moved to UK in 2006. A contrasting background of a childhood in Brittany near the Atlantic coast and adult life in Provence, where the Spanish side of her family had settled and where she also studied painting, she moved to Scotland in 2006. Cathie’s work is strongly influenced by these contrasting cultures and landscapes: the warm reds of Spain and the south of France, greens of Scotland & the moving beauty of the sea in Brittany.
“When I work, I represent nature in the most expressive and intense manner possible; I usually just outline the composition and start directly with my colours. Painting for me is an instinctive, raw, joyful process, hence the frequent use of the yellow, orange & red colours”
Cathie lives in Forest Row with her daughter and is one of the co-founders of the Ashdown Gallery.
Clio Pinkney originally from the Caribbean, studied fine Art at the Byam Shaw School of Art in London and has exhibited regularly since 1993.
“Through exploring what painting is fundamentally about - texture and treatment of pigment, space, plane and boundary - I seek to paint pictures describing the inner landscape. Among many artists, Matisse, Diebenkorn and the German Expressionists have influenced my journey into painting. My inspiration comes from dance and music as well as from the dramatic possibilities of the experience of being within the landscape, and from a childhood in the Caribbean”
She now lives and paints in Forest Row.
Jane Wharrad is a graphic designer & printmaker and has been making sculpture for 16 years. She has taken part in SEOS since the beginning in 1997, and has exhibited in UK and France.
Jane creates papier-marches sculptures (which can be cast in bronze on request) that are characters we all know caught in everyday spontaneity and domestic situations, full of real life & warm humour, sure of bringing a smile to the face of anyone who sees them.
“I seek to depict happiness and romanticism, of people, and sometimes their animals, caught in off-guard spontaneity. The process of working on a piece often makes me feel that I am just an observer, watching things take form and come to life. I hope the first reaction of someone seeing my work is a lightening of the heart”
Jane lives in Four Elms, near Edenbridge
Our "Buy Art Scheme" allows you to take away your favorite piece by leaving a 30% deposit and then pay in instalments!
Memory - Nature - Diversity
14th January-17th February 2011
Textile work and photography
Priscilla Jones
I draw inspiration from a variety of sources exploring the concept of identity, memory and nostalgia. The work explores the use of fabric in a constructive process using wire, thread, fabric, paint, wax, and stitch. These pieces are produced either in two or three dimensions and have a delicate quality that reflect the fragility of time.
Edith Pargh Barton
I have been creating artwork all my life, drawing inspiration from nature, primitive cultures, and the world around me. All the pieces evolve and grow through an intuitive process. As the piece evolves, I respond to it as though it, it self were directing me. The piece becomes an adventure, a journey to the source.
Steffi Push
I have always been very strongly connected to different kinds of storytelling. As we did not have a TV, our family and neighbours used to meet up singing, telling stories, gossiping. Later on my father gave me my first Russian viewfinder camera and I took an image of the donkey I had to care for as a member of our zoo brigade.
Elisabeth Sayers
My passion is landscape and inspiration comes from walking in the countryside. My aim in my textiles is to distil the experience of landscape- woodland waterside, fields and moorland- to its simplest elements; to evoke a sense of place and the feeling of being there.
Oriana Yates
My work is about the combining of materials, which are complete opposites, concentrating on the hard industrial materials, such as tar, plastic and terram, (a membrane for driveways), against the delicate domestic materials such as velvet, ribbon, silk and antique lace.
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