As Oxfordshire Artweeks continues this week, it’s North and West Oxfordshire’s artists enjoying their moment in the sun as dozens of artists throw open their doors to showcase their focus on nature, gardens and the magnificent local countryside.
Take the Williamscot Art Group, where Penny Andrews, Julie Herd, David Shapiro and Julie Bankes are exhibiting work in Cannons Yard Gallery outside Banbury. Inspired by their rural surroundings, their theme ‘How does your Garden Grow?’ is demonstrated through printmaking and paint.
Penny Andrews, whose paintings of tomatoes, garlic and artichokes burst with colour, says: “There’s something so romantic and engaging about the kitchen garden and the beauty that can be found in everyday vegetables when you really look close. I’m embracing that ‘slow living’ attitude that so often escapes us. You cannot rush a seedling and the same applies to a painting.”
Over in Witney at the historic Blanket Hall, one of a dozen Artweeks venues in the town, three textile artists have been inspired by their local landscape and its history with the wool trade.
Former weaver Amanda Hislop uses an abstract approach as she teams paint and thread to create mixed media works on canvas using a muted, earthy colour palette to depict the surrounding landscapes: “As a weaver, you learn to look closely to find colour and texture, so I focus on what’s at my feet in the undergrowth, from tangled brambles to pebbles,” she says.
You’ll also find Vikki Lafford Garside at The Blanket Hall in Witney, who concentrates on the smaller elements of the natural world. Her creations are primarily brooches in the bright jewel colours of nature created with layered vegan fabrics, machine-embroidered with rayon thread and finished with paint and the occasional embellishment.
Venture down to husband and wife team Jane and Dylan Bowen‘s exhibition on The Green in Tackley and enjoy their slip decorated ceramics using traditional and contemporary methods and techniques, alongside modern porcelain and sculptural work, framed by their beautiful, historic garden, the perfect backdrop.
Sue Rangeley, former artist-in-residence at Kelmscott Manor (the Grade I listed summer home of William Morris) is currently exhibiting in Charlbury where you can step into the creative world of a contemporary embroiderer and explore Sue’s exquisite craft techniques and artistic visions.
Eynsham is a hotbed of potters and there you will find Alison Holmans of Chicken Run Studio creating her inimitably colourful pottery, predominantly made of stoneware clay. Influenced by her native New Zealand bush and the wild lands of England. she says: “I strongly believe that any functional pottery must be a thing of beauty that you can leave out on display or have to hand for daily use.”
At the nearby Old Forge Pottery, a working studio for 12 potters, Abbe Humble-Bond is a porcelain artist and the creative force behind Humble Bond Ceramics. Her work explores the intricate Japanese techniques of Nerikomi and Neriage, through the artful layering, stacking, and folding of coloured clay, and delicate patterns. Abbe is also exhibiting a series of jigsaw puzzles designed to be handled as well as admired. As the viewer explores and reassembles them, the internal patterns align and shift with every turn.
Venture down to Wise Investment offices just outside Chipping Norton and you’ll find a pop-up gallery of 13 different artists alongside art from students from Chipping Norton School.
There you’ll find Judith Yarrow‘s work based around the Mawddach estuary and its Celtic rainforests armed by mosses, mountains, ferns, lichens, trees, streams and distant horizons. Judith who ‘uses her paintings to explore and express complex emotional landscapes, inviting contemplation and connection’ is therefore perfectly at home in Wise Investment’s own rural location complete with plenty of free parking.
And in nearby Finstock, Jane Tomlinson’s paintings celebrate the natural world in glorious colour in an exhibition that includes her painting of Old Father Thames, the winner of the People’s Choice award in the Oxfordshire Museum Open Art Competition last year.
“Old Father Thames is a river god, the deity central to the development of the English nation which flows through every vein of our history, culture and daily lives,” she says. “My painting is a reminder of how Old Father Thames should be. A healthy living space for all, a place of joy and wonder.”
Artists in Woodstock are once again exhibiting all over the historic town, from shop windows to hotel walls and the local church, the nature theme continuing in Jane Topliss’ ceramics and jewellery. Having originally studied to be a geologist/paleontologist, Jane only recently began working with clay. “There are also parallels between the patience needed for palaeontology and for potting, influenced by fossils, ammonites and trilobites, through ceramic jewellery, raku and table lamps.
Wood carver Martin Damen made each of the pieces in his current exhibition in his home studio on The Green in Great Bourton in a 17th Century former nail-maker’s cottage from timber collected from a 10 mile radius from his workshop, fashioning them into simple hand tools.
His spoons, bowls, and platters allow the natural characteristics of the trees from which they were created to shine, from ash to beech, sycamore, lime, field maple or even cherry and damson.
OXFORDSHIRE ARTWEEKS continues until May Bank Holiday ( Monday May 26). More details here: https://www.artweeks.org/festival
