Monday 26^th July to Saturday 31^st July  ~ 10am - 4.45pm daily

Joy Anderson

In my painting I reflect on the energetic forces of the world we inhabit.

This latest series of work has come about from drawings and photographs I have taken of fire and its fragmented remains. Objects partly charred or still smouldering inhabit a transient condition; their current state appears uncertain. Even as burning fragments turn to ash they are often liquid in appearance.

Perspex allows me to apply paint layers to a hard surface which can then be scratched and sanded away over several days or weeks leaving textured fragments of colour and line. Often I apply liquid ‘threads’ of paint as well as transparent fields or veils of colour to create a sense of space. My intention is to explore the tension between the elements which surround us, to unite their energies and seek some sense of balance between them.

Joy’s website: www.joyanderson.co.uk   Instagram : joyandersonart

Neil Wressell

I work in series of sculpture, paintings and installations to observe and explore our relationship with nature and the lack of our ability to slow the dramatic effects we have on it. The different series of works grow and develop, often from found or discarded objects that are recycled and refabricated to create artworks; these are often juxtaposed with newly carved, fabricated or painted elements. Often these works develop and change over the years with a start date but no finish date.

Sunday 1^st August to Saturday 7^th August  ~ 10am - 5pm daily

‘For the last few years we have been experiencing Dartmoor and the coast in all seasons, painting collaboratively and independently en plein air. We love it. The colours, sounds, constant changes of light and discovery of new places contribute to evoking all the senses and create a vitality not found in the studio! It has been a rollercoaster experience of collaborative painting, learning so much more than sharing a piece of paper.

Jane and Josie were finalists in the last Devon Life’s ‘Landscape Artist of the Year’.

The temptation to simply reproduce what we see is so hard to resist. Diving deeper than the surface response both Jane and Josie use a holistic approach.

Jane Ellis strives for an emotional response, exploring, expanding and developing what makes her react so powerfully to a subject. Her bold and energetic abstractions express her feelings about her surroundings: the landscapes of Dartmoor and south Devon, and the vivid colours and seasonal changes in the plant nursery where she works.

My paintings are the essence of my response to place. I am an intuitive, emotional and experimental artist and my painting journey becomes a conversation between myself and the unfolding artwork.

Josie Gould, returning home after a career as a professional sailor, loves immersing herself in the sensory qualities of light and colour, to catch the fleeting pulse and poetics of the Moor, the coast and the seas, rivers and estuaries that connect them.

‘In meditation practise, on retreat, many years ago, I experienced total immersion into an all encompassing joy, a dissolution into the nature of being, which has remained with me. This quality of presence reveals a thousand names for the joy experienced in the landscape. I aim to evoke these numinous qualities, the spirit, vitality and zest of life, in my oil and mixed media paintings.’

“Art typically comes through individual inspiration. The future of humanity lies in people learning to work together. If two artists are able to produce excellent/inspiring paintings collaboratively that is really something to celebrate”. Tobias Kaye, musician.

www.josiegould.com

Jane Ellis at Devon Artist Network

Sunday 8^th August to Saturday 14^th August  ~ open weekdays 10am – 5pm, Sunday 1pm – 4pm, Saturday 10am -4pm

Rachael and Angela first met in 2009 as gallery artists in a local Teignmouth gallery called “Voetstoots”. Rachael, newly retired from teaching and starting out on her journey as an artist, asked Angela to crit her work.

Rachael’s work was immediately impressive, decisive with a calm energy. Displayed alongside Angela’s tactile sculptures in stone and clay, there was compatibility: the works of both artists addressed the natural world through organic forms, textural mark making, gentle colour nuances of land and sea. It is the tangibility of their work that creates the ambience inviting the viewer to imaginatively touch and enter. In fact both artists have remarked that viewers frequently ask: “Can I touch it?”

Rachael and Angela also have in common, backgrounds of working in therapeutic environments co-ordinating the educational and creative activities of people with learning disabilities. Their work continues to have a contemplative narrative which they are pleased to share with the public in exhibiting at Birdwood House.

Monday 16^th August to Saturday 21^st August  ~ 10am - 4.45pm daily

Jayne is a self-taught local artist, inspired by her everyday experiences as an artist and mother she paints varied subjects but her interest is mainly in figurative and landscape paintings.

"It is important for me that I don't just put everything I see into a painting I also put everything that I feel. When I paint, I am looking for something that I consider ordinary, that I take for granted every day. There are moments when this ordinary is at its most wonderful. That is what I would like people to see."

Shadows, backlit silhouettes and bright lighting whether sunlight or artificial light is something that draws her to a scene. She likes to paint directional light and using a dry brush technique she creates mood, atmosphere and texture in her work.

Jayne is interested in the contained energy of figures. She wants to capture the feeling of them moving or propelled forward. She considers children and their freedom of movement, unguarded and true, as inspiring to capture on canvas.  Jayne considers herself fortunate that over the past year she has been able to spend more time with her own children and their friends. She has been studying their play and movements and this has inspired much of her current work.

Jayne uses her photography as a sketchbook and platform to produce her work and some of these photographs will be on show alongside her paintings.

www.jaynefarleigh.co.uk

Monday 23^rd August to Saturday 28^th August  ~ 10am - 4.45pm daily

Flowers, pots and tablecloth’s

Sent to work in a flower shop on work experience whilst at school saw Donna drawn into the world of flowers. She continued to work in floristry whilst studying Fine Art in her home town Brighton.

This led to a successful career running her on flower business alongside growing her family. Since moving to the South West 7 years ago she has concentrated on her art practice exploring the natural world, gardening and flowering alongside mothering. A strong interest in textiles, colour and collecting ceramics of all shapes and sizes remain constant themes in her work.

Monday 30^th August to Saturday 4^th September  ~ 10am - 4.45pm daily

Figurations 21 is the first joint exhibition of two local artists Clare Pumfrey and Veronica Moran who have both worked and exhibited in South Devon for many years.

Their exhibition is a lively and creative exploration of figurative art beyond the simple representation of figures to disciplines that play with not only the visual but also the media used. Textures and shapes are explored with ink, graphite, fluid acrylic and oil on canvas, board, paper and film.

Clare Pumfrey works on paper and canvas, using materials including soluble graphite, acrylic paints. charcoal and ink. Combining an observational approach to the human form with an interest in visual textures and the unique properties of materials, she extends her work, drawing and painting with a particular interest in the final image surface. Her process explores the potential of losing the image and then regaining it, profiting from the development of traces.

clarepumfrey.com

Veronica Moran works in oils, fluid acrylic and charcoal, making marks quickly in an expressive way to capture a moment, gesture or lightness.  She has been involved with figurative art for many years but also now works in landscape and still life.

The two most important things in her work are  – line, and it’s expressive nature and honesty – light, and how it plays across surfaces, hiding or highlighting form and texture.

veronicamoran.co.uk