'Adventitious'
Online Exhibition1st Dec 2020 - 31st Jan2021The Adventitious show continues until the end of January 2021.
Through December we highlighted traditional and contemporary artworks as an advent, where each day a new piece of artwork and artist was revealed.
Scroll to view artworks and artists. Enjoy!
'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.'
Zarina Keyani
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.
Carolyn BlakeEdited JD Francis
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.
Maggie LeaverEdited JD Francis
‘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.'
Shaun Hughes
‘Brainwave’ 2020 Watercolour and pen on paper, 20x20cm in a card mount 38x38cm
‘City dreams’ 2019 Acrylic on canvas, 30x30cm
Alexi K's artwork often begin as a geometric grid which during the process of layering and application, redefine into three dimensional op art . Reminiscent of the city and architecture his drawings and paintings are bold abstract structures.
For more on Alexi K's work click Here or on the image.
JD Francis
This portrait references the potential threats and benefits of computer surveillance systems.
Davenport’s artistic practice is focused primarily on portraiture which is an interest he has pursued since retiring as Professor of Primary Dental Care.
Davenport paints mostly in acrylic and prefers to work from life although he will refer to photographs when direct observation is not possible. He works rapidly aiming to create a strong, gestural image that helps to give the portrait strength and vitality.
In addition to working in acrylic he uses a variety of graphic media such as charcoal and graphite. He also regularly engages in printmaking, employing a variety of printing techniques.
John is a UK based artist who lives and works in Birmingham.
John DavenportEdited JD Francis
'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.
Anne Guest
Martin John Fowler is an artist working in the Yorkshire Lincolnshire Borders. Whilst traveling and recording the wild coastal areas from the Scottish isles to the hidden coves of Cornwall. He was born and brought up in the Mining towns of South Yorkshire. studied drawing and painting at Doncaster College of Art. Then studied Painting and Printmaking at Sheffield College of Art completing his BA(hons) in Fine Art. Martin has exhibited work nationally and internationally in solo, mixed exhibitions and competitions. His Paintings, drawings and prints are held in many private collections.
The Prevailing Sense of Change
'Drawing And Painting working on my ongoing project intensified by the prevailing sense of change from Coastal working ports to the Rural/Urban Landscapes of Britain, from childhood memories to the present which record and reflect the constant change and adaptions of an entire ways of life’.'
Martin's paintings are acrylic painted on location mainly with hands sticks etc.
Exhibiting in galleries from The Highlands of Scotland to the Cornish Galleries in St Ives.
Martin John Fowler
Diorama alludes to an archive that reflects the consequence of an ideology and politics from an historical perspective.
The work is a tangential thought process to Walsh's highly polished abstract geometric works. To view these click Here or on the image above.
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.
Lucy Fiona Morrison
'The tightly crowded imagery of human-like figures and mechanical objects such as cogwheels, bolts, wrenches and ratchets, flows with an asymmetrical distribution. The impact is that of being caught in an explosion in a Meccano set factory. Even more sinister are the steely knife blades and banded sticks of dynamite with attached clocks.
The human figures are themselves constituted of mechanical parts as if they have degraded from being entirely human, and morphed into mechanised and mass-produced killing machines, armed as they are with weapons of destruction. Their opaque eye sockets are unseeing and their mouths are open in a grimace of frenzy.'
Mohsen Keiany
'The is my contemporary version of the Juan Sanches Cotan painting Quince, Cabbage, Melon and Cucumber, (1602), currently on show at San Diego Museum of Art. This is my all-time favourite still life painting.
In my painting I approach the work with contemporary materials, such as Acrylic and acrylic glazing medium to create my Covid 19 'lockdown' painting. Although minimal in my approach, there are subtle nods to the excesses of modern life, such as the shiny packaging that attempts to preserve the contents yet stifle the planet in one fell swoop. Cotan was responding (possibly) to the scientific breakthroughs of his day, through the mathematics of the hyperbole, time and space. Cotan was also preserving his pantry by hanging the vegetables to protect them from bruising, whilst at the same time depicting the movement of the planets; moving, rotating vegetables would have been a nightmare to paint. I did not have such problems; these discoveries had already been made. For me for me the context of the everyday was far simpler. My bargain basement Wilko trolley had to be elevated at least within the treatment of the subject matter; chiaroscuro lighting, dramatic colour, and attention to detail. The painting does not faithfully replicate real life; it's still an artifice, made grander by my choice of colour. In real life, the scene is far more mundane. I wonder what Cotan would have made of today's wasteful, dystopian world through my dumbed down Druids Heath still life? Cotan looked through the lens of wonder; would he look through my lens and wonder?
Here's a link to a video by The San Diego Museum of Art about Spanish artist Juan Sánchez Cotán, Quince, Cabbage, Melon, and Cucumber.'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=5&v=-ZsAwhgM1wc&feature=emb_logo
'This work is part of a new body of work being funded by Arts Council England. The project comprises drawings, and music, worked in combination, each aspect influencing and informing the other. Drawings are recorded in the making, and the sounds used as song writing prompts. Subsequently the songs in turn influence the drawings… continuing my themes of cause and effect: how one person affects another, how we touch each other’s lives.
Covid-19 restrictions permitted, there will be an interim show in spring 2021, followed by the end of project show in the autumn.'
Elena Thomas
‘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.’
'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.
'I am a Birmingham based 2D painter and a member of several art societies. I usually work with watercolour, acrylic, or mixed media.
I love a bit of sci-fi. I am a big fan of Philip K Dick, Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, Andre Norton, Isaac Asimov’s short stories, C J Cherryh. Ray Bradbury, Harry Harrison; I’m also loving the expanse series written, audio and online. Classic movies such as Moon Zero 2, this island earth, the day the earth stood still, Outland, Darkstar, Alien, 2001, Space Hunter, Bladerunner, Forbidden planet, Fifth Element, Vallerian, Jupiter Rising, Cloud Atlas, Rogue one, a new hope, spaceship ‘72, all so good.
Art heroes for me are Carlos Ezquerra, Mike McMahon, Peter Elson, Jerry Anderson studios, Norman Rockwell, Johannes Vermeer, the pre-Raphaelite movement, JMW Turner, Claude Monet, Edmund Dulac, Arthur Rackham, the list goes on and on.
I am presently working on a private commission in acrylics of a ballerina, soon to be followed by some ABC Phonogram Cards in ink; drawings for my grand daughter to colour in, and a set of nesting Russian dolls.
I exhibit occasionally in the midlands area.'
Tim Osborne
'Cutlery Mask' Recycled Stainless Steel
Cartwright continues his figurative series of sculptures 'Sketches in Steel' with 'Cutlery Mask'.
For more about his work click HERE or on the image.
‘My paintings are imaginary spaces that are intended to give a sense of place with their own laws of physics. Perhaps oxymoronic, where the investigation into the pure matter and aesthetics of paint meets emotion, narrative and memory.'
Kay BainbridgeFor more about Kay click HERE or on the paintings above.
Sarah Keirle is a sculptor and ceramicist who predominately hand builds ceramic pieces using slab, coil and pinching techniques. She fires the domestic ware work to Stoneware either in electric or wood fire kilns, where recent sculpture pieces have been raku fired. With her Ceramic Jewellery pieces, all ceramic beads are hand made and decorated by Sarah with earthenware clay, coloured stains and glazes. These beads are combined with Stirling Silver to produce one of kind statement pieces or small batch productions of jewellery designs.
Keirle has a strong connection with the material through skill, knowledge and processes, and has a passion for colour, texture and layers. She appreciates a good form, surface design and finish. This is evident in all her surface treatments and ceramic work.
Keirle is influenced by abstract art, The British and Australian Studio, Ceramics, Contemporary Jewellery and the natural wonder of WA vast landscapes to produce her ceramic collections.
Sarah Keirle (nee Breen) was born in Warwickshire, England. She studied in the heart of the British Ceramic Industry in Stoke–on–Trent at Staffordshire University (UK) with the guidance of John Webber, Phil Eglin and David Sanders. Keirle graduated with a BA Hons in 3D Design Ceramics in 1998 and immigrated to Perth, Western Australia in the same year.
Keirle started her professional ceramic career in 2000 established as Sarah Breen and later re-established in 2008 as SARAH KEIRLE. She has gone on to teach ceramic classes for adults and children through Perth Studio Potters and has made Perth Hills her home with her husband, who built her a ceramic studio in Lesmurdie, Western Australia in 2005. She produces small-scale collections in bespoke sculpture, home ware and ceramic jewellery while they raises their young family.
Christodoulou uses old printing techniques including screen-printing, to produce enigmatic imagery which although static has motion and fluctuates as the viewer moves around the work.
He seeks to juxtapose the traditional with the modern and is influenced by Optical Art particularly geometric abstract and Pop-Art.
Christodoulou is an illustrator, printmaker, and installation artist. He studied illustration at Coventry University and graduated in 2014. He then went on to do an M.A in Fine Arts specializing in printmaking at U.C.A Canterbury where he graduated in 2015.
He has exhibited widely in both group and solo shows in Cyprus, France and England.
"Hippocrates and his Oath"
12 colour screen-print on paper
'Guy In A Bric-a-Brac Shop'
'Bricca Brac Shop
'From the English Gothic series incorporating references from historical landscape painting from the 18thc-19th centuries, 20th -21st 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
Thomas is inspired by time and visual perspectives.
Her beautiful abstract paintings depict various landscapes that she has visited and travelled through on her journeys around the world.
Her process using subtle layers, allude to spaces within spaces, where a mystery is unfolding and allowing you to happen upon the unexpected.
Thomas uses various mediums including charcoal and paint.
The artist lives and works in Leicestershire although exhibits nationally.
JD Francis
'Cloths of Heaven' is inspired by the Classic Poem of the same name by WB Yates. J Rowley
Rowley is inspired by literature and poetry, and works with textiles and mixed media.
Her intricately worked pieces are created using layers, with found and vintage fabrics which have a memory or history attached.
Rowley uses a felting technique to fuse fabrics where the layers become one and are bound together.
Rowley is a British artist based in the West Midlands.
JD Francis
'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.
JD Francis
Frenec Cseh
Cseh is a Cambridge based visual artist whose artistic style is rooted in his architectural and fine art training. He enjoys working with geometrical forms present in our built environment and exploring the interaction between humans and these shapes.
Cseh has been experimenting with basic shapes and forms for a long time. He is intrigued by the possibilities of space, space alteration by objects, movement in space, and the relations between humans and space.
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