Holly Kuehn
Holly is a painter who uses mainly oils but who also experiments with all sorts of different paint in her work. Her paintings begin with a narrative on contemporary life, not necessarily her own but of the wider world.
Each painting leads onto the next and Holly considers these a series of paintings which continue a story which began with the first. Each brush stroke is considered and reflected upon and a painting may take many weeks to complete. There seems a freedom with Holly's work. Brush work seems to be quite important to the overall effect of the painting. This series seems to relate a subverted children's story but apparently it doesn't.
Jo Marshall
Jo is interested in urban mark making in the form of graffiti and architecture. She works with collage and acrylic paint to reconstruct graffiti walls on canvas. Her work is also quite time consuming. She uses photography as a record and guide to graffiti text and walls.
Group crit notes: urban - combination of old and new - decay - walls - graffiti - relationship between graffiti and architecture - using found materials - walls as visual diaries - about society she lives in - related to space.
Julian McSweeney
Julian is a painter but not in the traditional sense. His painterly works involve performance in the form of skateboarding the paint onto board or paper. Reminiscent of Jackson Pollock and action painting his abstract marks are made on large boards which he places together to form a very large piece of work. The work can be juxtapositioned in different ways to create different scenarios. They also work well as photographic images.
Group crit notes: extended work - progressed from last year - skateboard painting - liquid water based inks - visual effects of presentation - dual nature of work, individual or as a group - inspired by abstract expressionists of America - about imprinting - autobiographic
Carolyn Morris
Carolyn's work is about the physicality of landscape. Her photographic work is collaged and merged with paintings and more recently clay from a particular site she has been working with. The site is what she finds interesting as there is a darker side to the landscape which you may or may not know about. Some of her work is 2D but has a 3D quality inviting the viewer to go up and touch the work, which is what Carolyn wants. She wants the viewer to interact and discover something. She is currently working on using clay on canvas or board.
Group crit notes: photography - painting - photographs of paintings - clay at place used in images - unyielding photographic surface - about reality - whats real - toxic - relationship between clay and paint - hands on the work - evidence of something engaged with - mixture of representation - some are abstracted images of paintings.
Kirsty Weeks
Kirsty is a print maker and is inspired by Wagner. Her work is about the tragedy and comedy of the theatre and the second world war.
Group crit notes: Wagner related - theme represents a character as emotion - themes are grief - looking at composers history - triggers themes translated as prints - starts with theme but is a journey and might be something different to them - begins with a collage sketch and then translates to dry point - hints of animation with strings and puppet presented in imagery.
Sadie
Sadie's semi-abstract work involves buildings and spaces. She attempts to rework or repair the spaces she photographs creating a different take on the space.
Stuart Layton
Stuarts work appears surreal and is about contemporary life and his childhood. He revisits the unexplained or unrealised and attempts a dialogue through his paintings that will take him closer to an understanding. He works in oils and has recently completed a set of paintings for the university. He is also a filmmaker and has produced some abstract short films which also inform his painting.
Group crit notes: Was talking about his commission and the problems, materials, time - work based on thought - stuff that sticks in his mind - diverse but specific - first inspiration from film - collages important elements - disparate imagery that forms relationships cos they share the same space and the working out and what they mean - space becomes a place -
Tania March
Tania is a photo realist painter. Her paintings are scenarios concerning everyday life and people. She is very interested in the person and his/her position in the contemporary world.
Joanne Henderson
Joannes work is about uncanny or eerie spaces. Her paintings are of rooms and spaces in houses. You might say they are difficult spaces. If you were confronted with them you would want to decorate but as paintings they have that absent body quality which raises questions as to what went on here?
The semi-abstract ones are cleaner looking but still retain that question making them possibly more eerie than the ones that seem derelict.
Group crit notes: Uncanny space or uneasy space - depicted as paintings - rooms - dark and moody - claustrophobic - newer paintings are sections of rooms - more abstract - inspired by film Darkwater.
Steve Bacon
Steve is a painter and questions urban prejudice.
Keith Reynolds
Keith is exploring his childhood and his wartime experiences through his paintings. He spends a long time sketching and drawing as well as painting. His work is mostly that of buildings and the blitz however his most recent work involves a figure amongst the chaos.
Deb Catesby
Deb uses paint to construct a narrative. She is interested in people and their stories. Her concern is composition and how things sit on a canvas and how they interact with each other in the painterly space.
Danielle Whitehouse and Hayley Bucks
Danielle is looking at the journey and Hayley is produces photographic abstract work produced from x rays with a sun bed.
Becca Harris
Brian Cook
Emma Birch
Dawn Harris
