My current painting explores two key areas – the figure and the urban environment – and is influenced by my continuing interest in film and television. My key focus, through the medium of painting, is how people interact with the contemporary environment. I show urban life in dramatic colour and shade by using a highly contrasting palette to additionally emphasise shape and form. I take images on camera or phone, later to be refined and honed digitally in the studio before commencing painting on paper, board or canvas. The intense colour using water based media (usually acrylic) of the finished piece is achieved by painting multiple layers, the image also changing/refining during this process with elements added or subtracted to obtain the final image.

I'm attracted by beautiful things such as flowers and landscapes. These are particularly appealing when the light catching them is just right. For me, the more colourful a subject is, the more likely it is that I'll want to paint it.

I started to paint about 35 years ago, after teaching science for several years. My previous experience encouraged me to experiment in this new arena, so I have worked with most media and on a variety of supports.

Painting in front of the subject is my preferred approach, so I often use subjects in my garden or in other gardens open to the public. I am an exhibiting member of Guildford and Farnham Art Societies with whom I exhibit and I also sell paintings with AppArt at their Easter exhibitions near Godalming. Though I don't have a website, I do display some paintings on other sites, which Google can find if you are interested.

Born and educated in the south of England, Kim has drawn and painted all her life. She was a teacher of art and design for thirty five years before moving in 2002 to Brittany where she lived and worked for twelve years. Her paintings have evolved from traditional landscapes to completely non figurative, abstract compositions combining tones, textures, lines and colours. Having painted almost exclusively in oils, Kim now works mainly in acrylics as collaging has become an important technique which she now employs to create texture.

"Charcoal is my favourite medium for drawing; it has profound depth and richness. I often make water colour sketches and take photographs out in the open and then rework the images back in the studio. Sketchbooks also serve to record observations, sensations and quotations. Sometimes I simply start from memory with glimpses that have unconsciously lodged themselves in my mind.”
Since November 2014 Kim has been living and working in Farnham Surrey. Her studio is open to visitors by appointment.

Sue paints pictures of everyday folk. Taking a lighter look at life, capturing our warmth and humanity. The aim being that you’ll recognise something in the image, like it's a reflection of someone you know, or a type of person - evoking a sense of the familiar.

The majority of her work is in oil, with just occasional forays into water-based media. In oils Sue starts by drawing with paint, the lines forming part of the finished piece. The same with water-based media, there is no initial drawing - rather Sue says she takes a deep breath and goes straight into the masses with a loaded brush. The focus being on the essence of the image, rather than the finer detail.

All the candid moments captured are of people Sue has seen whilst in her happy place – out and about with sketchbook and camera in hand.

Sue came to art later in life when an illness stopped her in her tracks – going to an Adult Ed Art Class was a way back to herself, and she was blessed with a brilliant mentor who helped her find her ‘thing’. Within two years she started exhibiting and selling.

In recent years she has been a finalist in the Holly Bush Emerging Woman Painter Prize 2018 & 2019, the winner of Creates Magazine Emerging Artist Award 2019, and in 2021 was a finalist in the Surrey Artist of the Year Award.

MY STORY

I like to contrast elements of tight, structured paint work with loose, atmospheric washes and gestural marks. Colour and texture are both dominant elements in my paintings. Expect to see a mixture of sweeping brush strokes, palette knife work, dripping paint, scratched back surfaces and washy pools of paint.

I respond intuitively to each of the landscapes that I have walked and seek to capture the elemental nature and energy of a place rather than to record a literal interpretation.

Like the patina of time, my work is multi-layered and built up and scraped back over time. This adds both depth and textural variety to my outcomes.

MY BACKGROUND

PGCE Secondary Art Education at Westminster College, University of Oxford.

BA (Hons) Fine Art at Manchester Metropolitan University.

As a secondary school art teacher, I work with some incredible young people who share my passion.
This helps me to keep my own work fresh and vibrant.

Martin works mostly in acrylics, sometimes watercolour or coloured pencil.

He wants to see art back where it belongs - part of the practice of deep observation: ‘If art (of any kind) became central to self-expression, then we would live very different lives.’

Louise is a landscape artist who studied Fine Art and Printmaking (BA) at West Surrey College of Art and Design during the early 1980’s.
Louise is a painter of landscapes. She works directly from the environment with inspiration coming from an emotional response to the dramatic effects of light evolving soft romantic moods and atmospheres.
She has exhibited in many sole and group exhibitions notably the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2011. She has won numerous prizes for her work and her pieces have been sold in the UK and Internationally for private and commercial collections.

Diana Pollock is a still life artist who studied Fine Art at Canterbury College of Art during the 1980s. She then moved to London and continued her interest in painting concepts and issues related to the domestic.

Her preferred medium recently has been pastels, building up layers to create sometimes, unexpected effects. She has developed a keen interest in the relationship with still life and the artist, believing that the interpretation of the subject matter is often consciously or not, autobiographical.

She has exhibited in many sole and group exhibitions in London and the South East.

My work sits between abstraction and figuration and is anchored in the landscapes which have inspired me in my homes and on our travels. I love vibrant colour, influenced certainly by living in India and Texas where the strong sun brings colour to life. I use colour expressively to capture a feeling or mood. In the same way my landscapes often include the suggestion of a house or home as a metaphor for feeling part of the landscape.