'My work is about social and cultural histories usually involving landscape, space or place. The recent work is about the adaption to the current situation which is chaotic and changeable.

Generally, I take ideas and aesthetics, choose a medium and see where it goes. Colour, texture and design are my main goals when I am creating work. Although usually a selfish venture, there are metaphors and language within that are universal.

I studied Art and Design at the University of Central England and Fine Art Painting at Worcester University and I have extensively studied photography, print-making and textiles. I have exhibited in London, and other UK cities and The USA.'

Blake's paintings are concerned with the suspension of time allowing the painted image to live longer than in a momentary glance. ‘The Day Now Far Spent’ is an exploration of memory. Memories of the day are taken into the evenings and nights, often accentuated by the absence of daylight. What might have been seen earlier in the day has changed in the late evening and night light, sometimes taking on new forms, though the daytime memories linger.

Her 2019 work, ‘The Unchanging Traveller’ also continues as a series of paintings recalling experiences of the passive traveller.

Blake is an Artist / Educator living in Birmingham, with an MA in Fine Art from City & Guilds, School of Art, London. In her early teaching career, she and her younger students collaborated with the Ikon Gallery. In the 1990’s she liaised with the Fine Art Department at Margaret Street, developing an artist in residence project for her school. She later took early retirement to pursue her own work. Alongside her paintings and in order to make her art more accessible, Blake also offers limited edition fine art prints.

Recent exhibitions include the RA Summer / Winter Exhibition 2020 and The Harley Open 2020, Welbeck Estate. She is currently showing with The Small Works Gallery and The Tub, Hackney. ‘Space and Place’ was a solo exhibition at TStreet Gallery, Birmingham held in October 2020.

Leaver uses contemporary painting approaches and experimental methods in watercolour and oils to highlight her concern for a fragile planet and fragile lives. The above painting is from the ‘Human Story’ body of work included here along with abstract watercolour piece.

Leaver has developed her art practice over several years and exhibits her work regularly with local galleries such as the RBSA (Royal Birmingham Society of Artists).

Leaver has also exhibited with the ORT Gallery, The Arches Project, The Artists Workhouse, Core Collective Artists, Cannon Hill Art School, Winterbourne Gallery, Mac Open Project and Hall Green Art.

In order to make her art more accessible she also offers limited edition fine art prints of her work and she also occasionally has a stall at MAC Birmingham Arts Market.

‘Cross the Border’ 2020 Watercolour and pen on paper, 20x20cm in a card mount 38x38cm

'I am an artist and lecturer based in Malvern and have exhibited throughout the region.

My work explores the relationship between what is seen and experienced and what I discover when I start painting and drawing.

Currently my subjects are taken from journeys through landscapes; maps, road systems, hills and cities. Although rooted in the motif my work tends toward improvisation. I allow visual elements from a wide range of sources to influence my work: music, science, history, signs and symbols.

I regard my work as being a diary that reveals unpredictable mysteries.

I have extensive experience of working in the arts from teaching through to academic research into arts based learning and practice.'

‘Brainwave’ 2020 Watercolour and pen on paper, 20x20cm in a card mount 38x38cm

‘City dreams’ 2019 Acrylic on canvas, 30x30cm

'My artwork is inspired by the natural world. I am particularly interested in the relationship between plants, insects and birds. I use the cyanotype process to make my work and I have recently started to incorporate diagrams of sundial into my artwork.

Migratory birds serve key functions in the interconnected systems that keep nature healthy, including pollination and seed dispersal of crops for human and livestock consumption and control of the numbers of insects.

Birds use the sun as a navigation aid like a compass to migrate across vast distances which allows them to make progress towards a goal without having to reassess their position constantly. In a local environment birds use solar clues such as shadows cast by hedges for orientation which shows both direction of the sun and time of day – like a sundial.

Flowers respond to the sun in different ways. Many flowers will follow the track of the sun throughout the day much like the shadow from the gnomon showing the direction of the sun on the face of a sundial. Others open and close to match the intensity of the sun. Some flowers face east in order to warm up more rapidly in the early morning which results in a significant increase in the number of pollinator visits.

I use the cyanotype process to make artwork in which photosensitive chemicals are exposed to the ultraviolet rays of the sun to create an image. To incorporate sundials into my work about plants, insects and birds follows as a logical extension.'

Anne Guest is an artist who lives and works in Worcestershire, UK.

Lucy Fiona Morrison has established a reputation as a painter renowned for capturing the character and essence of the land. Driven by a desire to remind viewers of the beauty of the landscape and inspired by the diverse vistas, Morrison is compelled to translate the breadth of colours, shapes and forms onto canvas. Morrison’s gestural oil paintings are composed of expressive colours and richly textured brushwork, offering her unique representations of the world.

‘Wayne Attwood seeks to explore the emotional responses to human relationships, including the emotions that can be evoked by memory of relationships. He views these paintings as ‘ghosts of the memory of feeling’. It is the often vagueness of memory or emotion why he eschews a literal or ‘realist’ approach, but leave space for a vague or unresolved interpretation to express such motifs.

He uses various sources for each painting, ranging from old film photography to direct observation to maintain the element of spontaneity and better capture a memory or an intimate response, as opposed to a face value depiction.

The paintings are 'searched-out' by the progressive (sometimes destructive) application of numerous interacting layers and marks, constantly moving the active paint layer around. Improvisation is fundamental to the process.’

Steve Evans

'The work, ‘Where’s Everybody Gone? Was my lockdown piece. It started in my head as a geometric abstraction but, as it progressed it was taking on suggestions of a city plan. So, I followed that lead. It is to be wall hung or shown on a flat surface, preferably the former.'

The work is informed by a background in structural engineering. The 3D works incorporate various materials. Some are closely related to the wall mounted work whilst others are constructions made with copper and painted. All have a strong linear element.

Tim Osborne

'From the English Gothic series incorporating references from historical landscape painting from the 18thc-19^th centuries, 20^th -21^st century urban and suburban architecture and classic monsters of the movies. Mouche in the Park takes Gainsborough’s Hollywell’s Park 1748 and superimposes elements from Druids Heath, where my wife Nita and I live. A relative high ground area on the outskirts of Birmingham, the views approaching home can be quite dramatic with the autumnal clouds framing the soon to be demolished tower blocks. There really is a meat van that parks up by a social club on Bell’s Lane, though the name has been changed for this fictional encounter. Can you spot the fly..?'

Paul Newman

Monsiur Mouche & Sons 2018 125 x 200 cm

'This was painted first, before Mouche in the Park, which zoomed out of the meat counter into the landscape. The two paintings have been showed together. It is my intention to paint a third canvas, perhaps zooming in this time, onto the glistening surface of a slab of meat. Maybe there'll be a small fly resting on there... The human Fly character has appeared in my work as a series of portraits and within narrative paintings for a number of years. The original image of the character was adapted from a b/w film still from The Return of Fly 1959.'

Paul Newman

'It is a drawing I completed just before swimming pools closed and as swimming is the time I can hear my own thoughts, I called it "the silence". ' Cristina Adams

Adams works in graphite and pencil as well as paints. Her large mono drawings are portraits of her and people around her. The work is about her surroundings and the community.

Adams is a UK based artist who lives and works in Birmingham.

JD Francis

Barbara Faulkner

Faulkner's paintings are a fascination with the everyday beauty of ephemera. Depicted, are still life compositions, staged theatrically with objects that the artist has collected and been given over the years. The combination of highly patterned surfaces with inanimates, creates a camouflage, where object and pattern merge. The artist's use of gouache gives the work an illustrative but quirky quality reflecting the personality behind the work.

Faulkner is a British artist and lives with her family in Worcestershire.