Issuu

Small Paintings

Sophie Wake

Small Paintings

Winter 2024

An exhibition of small works for the festive season.

Opens in gallery Saturday 30th November.

On The Small Painting

Anna Clegg

In a 2001 lecture for the UCLA Design Media Arts department, cinema and media theorist and cultural critic Vivian Sobchack introduces the self-proclaimed ‘ludicrous’ title of her talk: Nostalgia for The Digital Object. Briefly noting the irony of a genuine emotional response to a display of information that doesn’t physically exist, housed in a format that is constantly updating, she goes on to explain that her lecture will focus on the short-lived Apple video compression format 2D QuickTime, used for encoding simple, frame-by frame 2D animations before 3D capability was available. Sobchack then makes the unexpected connection to the work of American artist Joseph Cornell. Cornell, who was born in 1903 and lived in Brooklyn most of his life, was a “collector of all sorts of cultural detritus” (Sobchack, 2001), which he would fashion into intricate 3D collages housed in vitrine-like boxes. She displays images on the projector. Eccentric in his selections and compositions, it might be easy to dismiss Cornell’s assemblages of antique bubble blowers, sea shells, sheet music, cut-out illustrations of exotic birds, portraits of movie stars, old keys and dusty wine glasses as eerie or freakish, the work of an isolated obsessive.

However, there is an unmistakable tenderness displayed, a gentleness in the associational logic that binds these objects together in their little enclosures and bestows a great beauty and mystery onto their arrangement.

The crux of Sobchack’s connection between these curious collages and the images housed by 2D Quicktime is their “temporal nostalgia and spatial intensity” (Sobchack, 2001). She ponders where this nostalgia might come from, as she can’t place it within her own memories. She describes both instances as presenting a “‘read-only’ memory that is […] dynamic, contingent, associative, […] drawing us into enclosed and nested poetic worlds…”(Sobchack, 2001).

Whereas Cornell achieved this through careful internal decisions, QuickTime’s success came precisely through its limitations: the program was rudimentary, able only to present stuttering, low-frame rate series of images floating over and under each other in their small frame that to Sobchack had the “fragmented temporality and intensely condensed space” of a dream (Sobchack, 2001). Using these technical limitations as a crux to insist on

QuickTime’s philosophical separation from it, Sobchack soon makes it clear that her primary antithesis to these interior, z-axis realms is cinema. She believes that in comparison to the unusual architecture of Quicktime, free of gravity and of accurate representation, “live action balks and stiffens in contrast”, and that it’s wrong to measure the aesthetic values of the programme could only be choked by their comparison to cinema, their computergraphic novelty falsely inverted as a false cinematic “primitivism” (Sobchack, 2001). She notes that she has no desire to see Quicktime movies get any quicker—or bigger.

Perhaps a kindred understanding could be applied to the idea of the Small Painting. Existing beyond its simple, scale-based signifier, the Small Painting commands a similarly strong affective presence. Unlike Sobchack’s cinema, or indeed theatre or advertising, it does not demand you drop your reality in favour of its own, fleshedout and complete. Instead, the Small Painting’s limited scope suggests a collaborative reading that uses one’s own lived and remembered experience, similarly inaccessible in its totality, to complete the exchange. Like the act

of conversation or reading, the Small Painting relate to and actively require memory of the viewer, not present and not quite accurate, germinated in a membrane of subjective feeling. It requires patience and understanding, translation and sympathy. Like a book, it is an object relative to one’s body, understood in terms of the body and its experiences of things through time. The memory of playing with a pet as a child, its scale warped into something fantastical, or of staring at the corner of a room whilst a conversation that one might only be half obligated to join drifts through them, are embedded in the images small paintings present.

The notion of intimacy is inescapable, required even. One could consider employing film and media theorist Laura U. Marks’ idea of ‘haptic visuality’, applied by her more to international film, internet art and even smell, to the Small Painting. Summarised as a mode of looking that emphasises the texture, materiality, and surface of the image, haptic visuality differs from optical visuality, which creates a sense of depth and distance, instead drawing the viewer closer and inviting a tactile or embodied interaction with the image. Haptic images are often

blurry, grainy, or close-up, resisting detailed representation and fostering a sensory connection.

Indeed, historically synonymous for the most part in studies, sketches and other preparatory, surplus material, small paintings have been for the most part free of a systematic classical Western ‘reading’ put upon their larger, more important counterparts. As Sobchack’s QuickTime movies evade the requirements of cinema, they too could avoid obliging the code of symbolism essential to a purposeful, inflexible and ‘correct’ reading of a larger painting’s narrative. Instead studies occupied themselves with the sensual; the way posed fingers drape over a knee, a pair of eyes gazing soft and relaxed, folds of gold and blue cloth under candle or dusk. Miniature paintings were conceived as personal mementos and tokens of affection, much like photographs are today. Small and intimate, they were carried or worn by both men and women as a means to keep loved ones close at heart, even when they were not physically present. (Eve-Barnett, 2023). The Small Painting is personal, emotional. Like a song or a poem, a dream-like animation or shadow-boxed assemblage, it offers the opportunity for one to fold

back into themselves, reflecting and refracting an experience already lived through a new light.

Nicholas Jones Fire and Earth

Jane Ansell

Jane Ansell’s work explores the relationship she has with the landscape that surrounds her in Cornwall. Her works always start with a connection to nature be it from a walk, canoe trip or chance discovery with her rural environment. Her accomplished style allows her to not only represent her inner emotion but also the detail, either obvious or suggested, of her subjects.

Her inspiration is born from a reaction to her experience with the unique Cornish landscape but is never obvious or representative, preferring to capture the way unconscious emotions transport us to a fuller, more meaningful relationship with our surroundings. Her sensitive translation of this relationship produces work that is mindful and moving, delightful and deliberate. Her works are not bound to a singular style and say as much about her mind’s eye as they do the physical world from which they are drawn.

Based in her Cornish studio near Newlyn, Jane is a recognised talent from the Cornish Art Scene.

23.5 x 26 cm

Ansell_J087

Overwintering Oil on Board

Song Oil on Board

33 x 23 cm

Ansell_J088

Into the Wild I Oil on Board

21.5 x 18.5 cm

Ansell_J089

Into the Wild II Oil on Board

21.5 x 18.5 cm

Ansell_J090

Foragers

Helen Ballardie

Helen Ballardie is a painter whose work examines the essence of place. Having trained at Canterbury art school, she cultivated a rigorous approach to painting and drawing that fostered a boldness and ambition in her practice.

Ballardie’s artistic journey has been richly informed by her diverse experiences outside the studio. From specialist decorative painting in historic settings to scenic artistry for major theatrical productions, these roles not only honed her technical versatility but also instilled an appreciation for the interplay between acute precision and bold expression. This duality continues to underpin her artistic approach, blending meticulous attention to detail with the spontaneity of larger gestural strokes.

A pivotal shift in Ballardie’s work occurred when she moved to Orne, Lower Normandy. Immersed in the beauty of her garden and its surrounding landscape, she transitioned from conceptual figurative painting to a deeply personal exploration of nature. Her current body of work is a meditation on gratitude and the transcendent qualities of light, color, and form within her immediate environment. Each painting becomes an act of reverence for the natural world, unfolding over time, that acts to capture both its stillness and its dynamism.

Apple Tree, Rose and Daisies

Oil Pastel on Beech Panel 25.5 x 20.3 cm (unframed)

Ballardie_H007

Cherry and Fallen Plum Oil on beech panel

Plein air painting

34 x 27 cm (unframed), 37 x 30 cm (framed)

Ballardie_H010

Free Spirits Oil on Canvas

42 x 48.5 cm (unframed)

Ballardie_H020

Daisies, Field and Garden Oil on Canvas 50 x 40 cm (unframed)

Ballardie_H021

Daffodils, Daisies and Buttercups

Oil on Canvas

40 x 40 cm (unframed)

Ballardie_H022

and Wild Oil on Paper and Board 20 x 20 cm (unframed)

Dandelions

Ballardie_H023

April Dusk

Oil on Board

30.4 x 22.7 cm (unframed)

Ballardie_H024

Jane Bennett

Jane Bennett lives and works in the Brecon Beacons. She studied art at Leicester College of Education, at Cardiff College of Art and more recently she completed an MA in Fine Art, Contextual Studies at Swansea College of Art.

Jane’s captivating portraits are centred around her interest in discovered photographs of unknown individuals and family groups. Allowing the mind to wander into thoughts of their lives, names and associations, she paints tender and reflective portraits that, in turn, allow us to create connections with the people within her work. We have been very moved by both the intentions and results of her practice and view her paintings as motifs of human kinship which has great resonance in our current times.

Chiaki - A Thousand Autumns

Oil on Canvas

30 x 30 cm

Bennett_J031

Bennett_J032

Haruko - Spring Child Oil on Canvas

30 x 30 cm

Oil on Canvas

30 x 30 cm (unframed), 32.5 x 32.5 cm (framed)

Bennett_J036

Hanako - Flower Child

Bennett_J037

Indigo Oil on Canvas

30 x 30 cm (framed)

Blue

45 x 35 cm (framed)

Bennett_J038

The Blue Kimono

The

Kimono

Bennett_J039

Untitled Oil on Canvas 45 x 35 cm (framed)

Bennett_J040

Yoru Oil on Canvas 24 x 18 cm (framed)

45 x 35 cm (unframed)

47 x 37 cm (framed)

Bennett_J041

Woman in a White Dress Oil on Canvas

Sophie Carter

Born in 1972, Sophie Carter grew up in Cornwall and has been strongly affected by the area’s light, space and the skies above its sea and coastline.

Her paintings are an absorbing manifestation of the dreams she had as a child of being an artist, something she fulfilled professionally in 2016 after a varied career and raising her family. Sophie has always drawn and painted, attracted by the abundance of inspiration the Cornish environment affords her. Her paintings offer an escape, a sense of enthralling lostness in the beauty of what we see and feel in nature and spirit.

Sophie lives and works with her family in Cornwall.

Sun Bathed Mixed Media on Board

40 x 38.5 cm

Carter_S048

Saturation

Mixed Media on Board 40 x 38.5 cm

Carter_S049

Mixed Media on Board

Carter_S050

Amy Dury

“As a painter, I extract figures from photographs from the pre-digital age as a starting point. These can be found family photographs or home movies. Watching these personal films I instinctively stop them on frames that resonate. The images I am most often drawn to related to people’s roles in society, the hierarchies and dynamics of power involved.

I paint with a strong idea of colour to begin. I use both oil and acrylic paint, alongside charcoal and pencil. My background as a printmaker informs my use of layers and structure, yet I allow the process to move and evolve the work as it is constructed. Loose and textured painterly marks exist alongside more precise detail. A strong grounding in portrait and figure drawing gives freedom to describe or suggest.

Looking back into our recent past is an act of remembering and nostalgic mis-remembering, with photographs and film becoming the vehicle which constructs stories about ourselves. Figures are often rewritten or falling from clear view, and I use digital processes to reconstruct the scenes and suggest colour themes. Our history instructs, seduces and tethers us, and I look to use paint to examine these emotive memories which reflect current themes and tensions in contemporary life.”

Dark Donkey Oil on Canvas

60 x 60 cm

Dury_A009

First Dog Oil on Canvas

15 x 15 x 3.5 cm (unframed), 17.5 x 17.5 x 5.5 cm (framed)

Dury_A010

John Harmer

Artist and Illustrator John Harmer studied Fine Art at Worthing Art College between 1987-1989, and then at Bournemouth and Poole College of Art and Design from 1990-1993. He now lives and works in West Sussex.

Harmer’s work is largely concerned with the formal elements of his chosen medium, honing in on form, colour and texture. The latter of which, he takes particular joy in experimenting with; areas of impasto stand out in visible relief beside watery washes, while others have been scratched and scraped away creating textural ridges, and exposing numerous layers beneath.

Stack

Mixed Media on Paper

30 x 31 cm (unframed), 44.5 x 44.5 cm (framed)

Harmer_J015

Quay Mixed Media on Paper

22.5 x 30 cm (unframed), 36.5 x 43.5 cm (framed)

Harmer_J016

Wired

Mixed Media on Paper

15 x 20 cm (unframed), 29 x 34 cm (framed)

Harmer_J017

Silo Mixed Media on Paper

23.5 x 41 cm (unframed), 37.5 x 55.5 cm (framed)

Harmer_J018

Nicholas Jones

Nicholas Jones was born in Bristol in 1965. Having studied Fine Art at Bristol Polytechnic, he worked almost exclusively in the medium of stained glass for the first three years if his practice before returning to painting, fostering an intense relationship with the examination of luminescence.

This has endured as a major theme in Jones’ paintings, alongside those of landscape, abstraction and colour. Taking inspiration from his rural surroundings in Somerset, from visits to the Lake District and Scotland and from more particular location studies, such as his 2018 position as Arctic Artist in Residence with the Friends of the Scott Polar Research Institute, his practice recalls the experience of nature; of hills, mountains, water, skies, trees, horizons. Solid, liquid and gaseous states melding together, quiet and dreamlike, Jones’ works move at a glacial pace.

Fire and Earth

Acrylic on Canvas Mounted on Plywood 23 x 19.5 cm (unframed), 25.5 x 22 cm (framed)

Jones_N009

A Benediction of Light Oil on Canvas on Board 23 x 23 cm (unframed), 25.5 x 25.5 cm (framed)

Jones_N010

23.5 x 19.5 cm (unframed), 26 x 22 cm (framed)

Silent Snow Fall

Acrylic on Canvas Mounted on Plywood

Jones_N011

Evening Breath

Acrylic on Canvas Mounted on Plywood 24 x 24 cm (unframed), 26.5 x 26.5 cm (framed)

Jones_N012

Midnight Drift

Acrylic on Canvas Mounted on Plywood

28 x 22.5 cm (unframed), 30.5 x 25.5 cm (framed)

Jones_N013

Twilight Dreams

Acrylic on Canvas Mounted on Plywood 23.5 x 19.5 cm (unframed)

Jones_N014

Anna King

“I’ve always been interested in places where man and nature meet - the overlooked and unloved margins of our landscape. From deconstructed sheds to overgrown greenhouses, clearfell sites and field edges, my paintings explore nature’s opportunistic reclaim of our managed landscapes; celebrating weeds and wildness, and beauty found in the unpredictable tangle of encroaching plant life.

I work in oils on paper pasted onto board, drawing into the wet paint with pencil. This technique results in a sketch-like finished work; the fragility and fluidity of the marks on paper echoing the temporary and peripheral nature of the places I paint.”

Yellow Container Oil, Ink, and Pencil on Paper and Board

50 x 40 cm

King_A029

King_A034

Sycamore, Queenscairn Hill Oil and Pencil on Paper and Board

26 x 32 cm

King_A035

Willow, Gordon Woodland Oil and Pencil on Paper and Board 26 x 32 cm

Brick Ruin, Georgefield (III) Oil and Pencil on Paper and Board

26 x 32 cm

King_A036

King_A037

Field Edge, Softlaw Oil and Pencil on Paper and Board

26 x 32 cm

Philip Lyons

Philip has lived in Cornwall since 1989, where he paints places and objects that he has come to know well. There are places near to his home to which he frequently returns, viewing them from different perspectives and at different times of the year and day. These landscape are marked with human activity: housing; mining; farming.

In his still life paintings, Philip enjoys painting familiar objects such as bowls and books. Objects that catch his eyes as the sun moves around his house. The paintings extrude a sense of stillness and calm, achieved from working repeatedly on the surface of these work, rubbing back and removing paint before adding more layers to reveal unexpected colours and shapes which often take the painting in a new direction.

These paintings often start with a grid structure, the evidence of which can sometimes be seen in the final version. Structures such as window frames, shelves, and buildings are used to contain his compositions.

Just Two of Them

Acrylic on Board

30 x 30 cm (unframed), 48 x 48 cm (framed)

Lyons_P071

Golden Gourd

Acrylic on Board

25 x 28 cm (unframed), 43 x 45.5 cm (framed)

Lyons_P072

Plant and Pot

Mixed Media on Panel 21 x 25 cm (unframed), 23 x 27 cm (framed)

Lyons_P079

Mixed Media on Panel

25 x 30 cm (unframed), 27.5 x 32.5 cm (framed)

Lyons_P080

Plant

Bridget Moore

“A lot of my work is about intimate little domestic scenes of things remembered from childhood but also I am trying to offer a glimpse into the long held fascination I have with the themes of circus’s, sideshows and theatrical scenes - the earthy arenas with the people that occupy them. Snatches of colour or a shape glimpsed often spark an idea along with little notebook drawings that form the basis of paintings. I work from things witnessed but much is from my imagination. Ultimately I’m trying to convey a sense of place through the use of colour and how I compose various elements and to catch these characters as they slip between the shade behind the scenes and stepping into the light.”

In and Out

20 x 26.5 cm (unframed)

Moore_B001

Gouache on Board

Round and Round

21.5 x 29.5 cm (unframed)

Moore_B002

Gouache on Board

Galloping Gouache on Board

20 x 24 cm (unframed)

Moore_B003

Dog Trix

Gouache on Board

21.5 x 29.5 cm (unframed)

Moore_B004

Caroline Mordue

“Through my paintings I focus on exploring the forms of interior landscape, and looking at everyday objects in a way that brings out beauty in simple scenes. In these paintings, I seek to capture the ordinary moments around us that often go unnoticed, such as light falling through the spindles of a chair, glances out of a window, or the intimate corner of a restaurant.

With my recent work, I have been influenced by the paintings of Édouard Vuillard, and Gwen John’s interiors. Blocks of colour and quiet sensitivity. Loosely painted oil colours, areas of the canvas are sometimes left exposed, the space speaking for itself. I often paint on wood, stiff card, or canvas board. The hardness lending to a dry style of painting, not quite chalky. My palette is subdued and earthy, colours from the past, like old things.

Painting is solitary for me, there are no people in my work, instead it’s empty chairs and places once inhabited.”

Midweek Recipes

Oil on Wood Panel

13 x 18 cm (unframed), 15 x 17 cm (framed)

Mordue_C001

Page 98, Midweek Recipes

Oil on Wood Panel

13 x 18 cm (unframed), 15 x 20 cm (framed)

Mordue_C002

Autumn Trees, Lauder Oil on Canvas Panel 13 x 18 cm (unframed), 15 x 20 cm (framed)

Mordue_C003

Night Visitor Oil on Canvas Panel

13 x 18 cm (unframed), 15 x 20 cm (framed)

Mordue_C004

Oranges and Bowl, Elliott’s Market Oil on Wood Panel

20.5 x 25.5 cm (unframed), 22 x 27 cm (framed)

Mordue_C005

Sunset Garden in Lauder Oil on Canvas Panel 13 x 18 cm (unframed), 15 x 20 cm (framed)

Mordue_C006

Orange and Bowl, Elliott’s Market Oil on Canvas 10 x 15 cm (unframed), 12.5 x 16.5 cm (framed)

Mordue_C007

Harriet Porter

Harriet Porter is a London-based artist specialising in Still Life painting. She uses this traditional discipline to create contemporary minimal pieces inspired by her fascination with light. Working closely from observation, she creates pared-back compositions of solitary objects emerging from deep shadows or bathed in soft daylight. The objects are sourced from her collection of antique silverware but, rather than depicting the object itself, she focusses on the shapes of tones in her view. These elegant reflective vessels exist simply as part of their surroundings, blending into, and defined by, the space around them. She works on several canvasses at a time, gradually building layers of glaze. These subtle gradations of tone create the illusion of slow quiet movement, like a calm river on a still summer’s evening.

Porter’s preoccupation is informed by her previous career as an art director and stylist. Working in film and photography, she found the camera increasingly frustrating. As a capturing device it became insufficient to describe the wonder with which she perceived the shimmer that constantly caught her eye. She found that painting achieved more accurate results, bypassing unwelcome photographic detail.

Smallest Glint of Light Oil on Canvas 30 x 30 cm

Porter_H073

Midsummer Glow Oil on Canvas 30 x 30 cm

Porter_H074

Close of the Day

Oil on Canvas

30 x 30 cm

Porter_H076

Faint Mirage Oil on Canvas

30 x 30 cm

Porter_H077

Remembrance Oil on Canvas 35 x 40 cm

Porter_H078

Study in Shadows Oil on Paper on Panel

30 x 30 cm

Porter_H079

End of Summer

Oil on Canvas 40 x 40 cm

Porter_H080

Nick Sargent

Nick Sargent turned to fine art after a twenty-year career in theatre design. In 1999, he returned to college to study an MA in Fine Art at the Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design in Dundee. It was his background and experience in different design disciplines which culminated in current his artistic style. Working mostly on woven and embroidered canvases, Sargent creates uneven but controlled surfaces, applying a variation of oil and mixed media. Since the beginning of his fruitful artistic career, he has taken part in numerous solo and group exhibitions around the UK.

Reveal Oil and Acrylic on Embroidered Canvas

32 x 43 cm (unframed), 45.5 x 58.5 x 4.5 cm (framed)

Sargent_N021

Pulling Focus

Oil and Acrylic on Embroidered Canvas

31.5 x 42 cm (unframed)

45.5 x 58.5 x 4.5 cm (framed)

Sargent_N022

Complementary Oil and Acrylic on Embroidered Canvas

30 x 46 cm (unframed)

45.5 x 58.5 x 4.5 cm (framed)

Sargent_N023

Symbiosis

Oil and Acrylic on Embroidered Canvas

32 x 43 cm (unframed)

45.5 x 58.5 x 4.5 cm (framed)

Sargent_N024

Kate Sherman

Kate Sherman was born in 1970 and studied Fine Art at Birmingham from 1990-93. For 10 years she worked in London for a large contemporary art gallery, before deciding in 2005 to paint full time. Today, she lives and works near Brighton in Sussex.

Birch 10 (Winter, 2020)

Oil on Panel

25 x 30 cm (unframed), 43 x 48 x 2 cm (framed)

Sherman_K013

Birch 7 (Winter, 2020)

Oil on Panel

25 x 28 cm (unframed), 42 x 46 cm (framed)

Sherman_K014

Birch 13 (Spring, 2020)

Oil on Panel

25 x 31 cm (unframed)

42.5 x 48.5 cm (framed)

Sherman_K015

Birch 15 (Spring, 2020)

Oil on Panel

25 x 28 cm (unframed), 42.5 x 56 cm (framed)

Sherman_K016

Elaine Speirs

Elaine Speirs was born in Johannesburg and later, whilst still a child, moved with her family to Paisley. Her experiences in and between these two places spurred an interest in the themes such as fragility, contradiction and reinvention which recur throughout her work. Between 1989-93, Speirs trained at Edinburgh College of Art and after that, at the Slade School of Fine Art in London between 1993-95.

Speirs explores the stark contrast that she has observed between the rich contours of femalepersonhood and the depersonalised portraits of women that frequently appear in the public sphere. Referencing a variety of imagery, ranging from eighteenth century portraiture to contemporary photography and film, her work reclaims fleeting moments of humanity.

Blues, Pinks and Whites

Oil on Aluminium Panel

30.5 x 25.5 cm (unframed), 34 x 29 cm (framed)

Speirs_E018

Sunny Pink Oil on Aluminium Panel

30.5 x 25.5 cm (unframed), 34 x 29 cm (framed)

Speirs_E019

Delphinium Oil on Aluminium Panel

30.5 x 25.5 cm (unframed), 34 x 29 cm (framed)

Speirs_E020

Blue

Plum, Dahlia and Red Gladioli

Oil on Aluminium Panel

30.5 x 25.5 cm (unframed), 34 x 29 cm (framed)

Speirs_E021

David Storey

David Storey is a renowned British figurative painter, and a Threadneedle Prize finalist, whose emotionally charged paintings are an exploration of memory, with half-remembered people and places emerging from complex layers of texture and colour. His process is physical, preferring fingers, rags and sponges as his tools for applying colour and texture. He wants us to be absorbed by the effortless experience of gazing upon his work which itself is paradoxically underpinned by the enormous effort put in for his paintings to appear that way.

David gained his fine art training at Middlesex University during the 1970s. He was an art lecturer at St. Martins College of Art, London alongside being the creative art director behind legendary record label 2-Tone in the late 70s and early 80s. David now lives and works in Brighton. His paintings offer us a glimpse into our relationships with people from the perspective of how we remember them. Nostalgic, half remembered scenes, manifestations of the emotions that we feel when thinking back to those who have gone before us or the way we were ourselves. Collectors of David’s paintings are often bonded to his works by the associations his scenes create to times past, a transportation back to very real feelings that, whilst distant in time, remain very present in our hearts.

The Longest Day (study) Oil and Mixed Media on Paper

41 x 33 cm (unframed), 67 x 56 cm (framed)

Storey_D105

Storey_D106

Figure on a Horse Egg Tempera and Oil on Wood 10 x 13 cm (unframed), 44 x 33 cm (framed)

Egg Tempera and Oil on Wood 10 x 13 cm (unframed), 43 x 33 cm (framed)

Storey_D107

Young Girl and Her Dog

Woman in a Yellow Dress

Egg Tempera and Oil on a Wood Panel

10 x 13 cm (unframed), 43 x 33 cm (framed)

Storey_D108

Jo Taylor

As an art student in Leeds, Jo Taylor (b.1969) made the decision to take her life’s work back to her childhood passion for horses, from that point they have formed the main subject in her mixed media artworks. As an accomplished horsewoman herself, Jo spends hours each week riding out over her native Lancashire fells, from where she takes the inspiration for her organic palette. After her residency at the Department of Veterinary Science at Liverpool University, Jo was left with an exceptional understanding of equine anatomy. Her paintings are drawn from that first hand experience and observation of the character and physiology of each animal.

Through her fluid and confident mark making, using charcoal, chalks, watercolour and wax, Jo captures the very essence of each of her subjects. Her connection and understanding of the species is undeniable, encapsulating all the elements of their form, shape and behaviour within these remarkable artworks. Jo was shortlisted for the New Light Art Prize in 2015 and 2017.

Bird Ink on Paper

18 x 30.5 cm (unframed), 39 x 51 cm (framed)

Red

Taylor_Jo021

Air Dog I

Ink on Paper

58.5 x 40.5 cm (unframed), 80 x 62 cm (framed)

Taylor_Jo022

Air Dog II

Ink on Paper

58.5 x 40.5 cm (unframed), 80 x 62 cm (framed)

Taylor_Jo023

The Big Dream Charcoal on Paper

40.5 x 60.5 cm (unframed), 58.5 x 79 cm (framed)

Taylor_Jo024

Zoe Taylor

Zoe Taylor is a highly collected, respected and sought-after British landscape artist. Born in 1957 in Staffordshire, England, her artistic focus has always been landscape. She renewed her love for painting after a formative City & Guilds textiles course in the 1990s.

Her sweeping vistas comprising intuitive, gestural mark making connect with everyone who has marvelled at the raw and powerful beauty of untouched landscape. Taylor works off of rough en plein air sketches and scribbled notes, merging these together with half-remembered landscapes and feelings. Moors of heather, gorse, grass and ferns stretch before us in her works, as well as eroded ridges of rock and exposed earth. Low horizons and huge, ever-changing skies combine to give us a palpable sense of human perspective, conjuring awe and respect for the land beneath us and skies above us. Each of her titles reflect the artists’ thoughts behind the work, rather than having a direct connection to what the viewer can see.

Her work is exhibited at various galleries throughout the UK and is held in private collections around the world.