Ben Davies grew up in York and started making pots at the age of 15, inspired by his pottery teacher at school. After taking a foundation course in Art and Design at York College, he went on to read Geography and Geology at Manchester University. This was followed by two postgraduate years at the Royal Academy of Music in London, studying cello with Derek Simpson and chamber music with the Amadeus Quartet. Since leaving the Academy in 1989, Ben has worked as a professional cellist and teacher. He returned to pottery in 1994, attending classes at Barry Guppy's studio in Pimlico. Ben lives in Hackney, East London with his partner and three children, and since 1997 has been building his pots in a shed at the bottom of the garden. He started exhibiting his pots in 2004. Coloured clays and vibrant slips are used to create distinctive coiled pots, which take their forms and surfaces from beach stones and geological textures. Striations and marbling techniques create a dramatic effect, using red, green, black and white clay. The surfaces are scraped, sanded, burnished and waxed, before each piece receives a single firing at earthenware temperatures. Some pieces are given a second smoke firing using sawdust and seaweed. Exhibitions
Arthur Giardelli was born in London in 1911, took a degree in Modern Languages at Oxford (where he was President of the Music Society) and studied drawing at the Ruskin School of Art under Barnett Freedman, Albert Rutherston and Gilbert Spencer. During the war he met Cedric Morris who invited him to study at his school in Suffolk (later burnt down by Lucien Freud) and through whom he first exhibited work at teh Redfern Gallery in the late 1940's. In 1963 he held a one-man exhibition at the National Library of Wales and first showed at the Grosvenor Gallery, then in Davies Street, in 1965. Since the mid-1950's he has exhibited more than 150 times with the 56 Group Wales, in Holland, Germany, France, Czechoslovakia, Italy, Great Britain and Ireland. For many years Senior Tutor in History of Art in the Extramural Department of the University of Wales at Aberystwyth, he continues to lecture three times a week throughout South Wales. His work is to be found in many distinguished public and private collections. He writes: 'In making my relief constructions I have used, over the last 60 years: sacking, slate, wood, jetsam of many kinds, seashells, silver, brass, gold, copper, glass, rag paper from old printed books, many kinds of cloth, powder pigments including the earth colours, cobalts and cadmiums, indian pink, pencil and enamel. I live five miles from a shop and ten minutes from a wild Pembrokeshire coast where I draw the sea and shore in all weathers, direct from nature if at all possible. Many of the drawings I make into watercolours on the spot, or at home. My wife (the artist Bim Giardelli) and I travel to see what is being done in other parts of the world and to draw there: from Paris to Katmandu, from Moscow to Peking and Cheng De, from Venice and Rome to Cape Wrath. In my studio in the former school of Warren I make my relief constructions from discarded things and materials. These constructions range in size from eight inches to 3 x 4 feet square. Many are based on drawings made of the sea and take three or four months to make. What I collect and my drawings revive my experiences among the rock pools, waves, mists, lights, storms and distances at the sea's edge. I have done the same for fields of wheat, for the last glow of sunlight seen from deep in a wood, and for the sky at night.'
Biography currently unavailable.
David Gould was born in London and studied painting at the Gloucestershire and Royal Colleges of Art. After one year as an Abbey Major Scholar in Rome, he went on to teach at Cardiff and other Colleges of Art, and is now Director of the Foundation Course in Art and Design at the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff where he has lived and worked for over 20 years. He has exhibited work regularly in Wales, London, and elsewhere. Paintings Of Landscape And Still Life I began painting landscapes in Italy some 30 years ago, and have continued to work from landscapes both there and here in South Wales. I take great delight in exploring landscape wherever I am and in trying to come to terms with it in painting. I try to explore the complex encounter between the energies of growth and light, the changing configurations of colour and surface seen in landscape, working through close, prolonged and searching observation, and a gradual, cumulative depiction. Light, (usually direct and changing sunlight) has always been a dominant element. I often select a panoramic viewpoint and choose very particular states of light, which recur at certain times of the day, and these impose a distinct structure onto my painting routine. I am always fascinated by the ways in which light and shadow can spread across a surface, dissolving, concealing, revealing or emphasizing its features. I work usually in acrylic, building up the work slowly, delicately and gradually over a long period oftime, and sometimes in watercolour. Still life, in particular small groupings of fruit, has also been important to me because of its scale, accessibility and controllability. These works are painted from observation in direct sunlight, which can transform the still life into something like a landscape; it can both dematerialize objects, and display them at maximum intensity.
Biography currently unavailable.
Education
Selected Group Exhibitions
Selected Solo Exhibitions
Scholarships, Sponsorships and Residencies
Works by Eliseo Laganà are currently in the collections of The Welsh Arts Council and The National Museum of Wales.
Biography currently unavailable.
I live and have my studio on the waterfront in West Mersea, and spend a considerable part of each year on a small island in West Cork. Island environments, and these two in particular, have become the primary influences in my work. Sea and sand patterns, shapes of stones, textures, imprints in mud, fish, birds, boats, sea, myths & biblical stories with sea references, are all used as starting off points in my etchings. I work on copper or steel. The plates are deeply bitten to hold ink at different levels, and use soft ground impressions, course and fine aquatint and blind embossing to achieve a richly worked surface. At times this is combined with a roll of transparent colour. Editions are of 100 or 75, and are usually printed on heavy 300gms Somerset paper. All the work, from the initial drawings, through the workon the plate, to the final inking and printing of each print, is carried out by myself in my own studio. I trained as a painter at the Southern College of Art, Bournemouth, at Goldsmith's and the Central School, and only much later discovered etching at Morley College in South London. Living in Greenwich, I was instrumental in helping to found the Greenwich Printmakers, a printmakers co-operative with its own gallery, and remained a member for many years. I now belong to Gainsborough's House Print Workshop, and am a member of 12 PM. (twelve printmakers). In recent years I have exhibited at the R.A. and in the R.E Open exhibitions. Also at the Barbican in the Contemporary print shows 1996 - 2000. In 1999 I was awarded the Coley and Tiley prize by the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists. In September 2003 I had a solo show at the John Russell Gallery in Ipswich, and in February 2004 I had work in the 'Originals' exhibition at the Mall Galleries, and a show of etchings at the Geedon Gallery in Fingringhoe. In October 2005 I shall be taking part in the Affordable Art Show at Battersea, and in November 2005 there will be an exhibition at Haylett's Gallery in Maldon. My work is in various collections. The Ministry of Defence, 'Graphotek', Berlin, the Chelsea and Westminster collection, the House of Lords collection, the collections of Epping Forest District Museum and of Colchester castle. I was also commissioned to make two editions of etchings for the P&O cruise ship 'Oriana'.
Jean Nicholson is inspired by colour. She trained as a printmaker and is currently working on several small series of monoprints such as the 'Secret Garden' and 'Squaring the Circle'. She starts by etching a plate, or sometimes two, and develops her original idea with colour and techniques of collage and chine colle often using small etchings printed on fine Japanese paper so that each print is unique. Other recent printmaking includes three-plate etchings, two of Cumbria and one of Monet's garden at Giverny, each inked up in five colours and a small two-plate etching of a field in Surrey. There are also three reduction lino-cuts - known as suicide prints because after printing each colour, it is cut away and cannot be reprinted. She has painted for many years, working mainly with water-based media on heavy Somerset rag paper using inks, crayons, acrylics and sometimes pastels to build up layers of colour and texture. Her subject matter and perception of colour for these have been strongly influenced by visits to Turkey and other Mediterranean countries and to India, Africa and Indonesia, where she has collected textiles, pots and other items for still life paintings. Other work is based on gardens and interiors, often transformed by memory and imagination. Jean Nicholson has been a practising artist for more than thirty years. She was a founder member of the Nine Elms Group of Artists in 1987 and Chairman from 1994-1996, exhibiting regularly with the Group. Recent one-person shows include the Pump House Gallery in London in 1993 and again in 1997. Her work has also been shown with The Printmakers Council, The Royal Academy, The London Group and the Royal Society of Painter Printmakers as well as many commercial galleries. She is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
Born 1950 Educated 1967 - 1975: Colchester School of Art, St. Martins School of Art and the Royal Academy Schools. Exhibitions
Co-founder and contributing editor of Artscribe Magazine in the early 1970's, wrote for various art publications, including Artforum, from 1975 to 1980. Represented Artscribe at the College Art Association conference in 1978, funded by the British Council. Lectured and taught at various Art Colleges in the UK during the 1970's. Held a full-time post at Bristol Polytechnic in 1977. Curated various Exhibitions including co-curating with Terence Maloon, the first one-man Show of Paintings by Charles Pollack in London in 1978 Moved to New York in 1978, founded Rippon Design Company, which is still operating today. The company designs, builds and installs custom furniture, cabinetry and interiors in and around New York, Philadelphia and Boston. Married and became a Citizen of the United States in 1990. Resides and works in New York City, also a director of T. Rippon & Sons, a real estate holding company, in Essex, England.
Richard Sorrell was born in 1948, the son of Alan Sorrell, the historical draughtsman and painter and Elizabeth Sorrell the watercolorist. Richard studied at the RA Schools (Post Graduate Course) 1968-1972, having also attended Walthamstow Art School and Kingston College of Art. Richard was elected to the Royal Watercolour Society in 1975, and was Vice-President of that society 2002 to 2005. He is also an Executive Committee member of the New English Art Club and a member of the Royal Society of British Artists, by whom he was awarded the De Laslo Medal in 2002. He is a Governor of the Mall Galleries. Richard Sorrell's work is held in the collections of the V&A Museum, Museum of London, the National Trust, Norwich City Council, Beecroft Art Gallery, Southend-on-Sea, and in private collections in Britain, Europe and the US. In 2001 he presented one of his paintings on behalf of the Royal Watercolour Society to HRH Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother to mark her Centenary. Education
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