West Midlands Open

Floor 3 | 20 May — 25 September 2022

The New Art Gallery Walsall is delighted to present, for the first time, the West Midlands Open, an exhibition of recent artworks in various media by artists from, or connected, to the region. The exhibition follows an open-call to West Midlands artists, including those currently attending an art school in the region or educated here in the past 10 years.

The Gallery received over 500 entries from across the region, spanning Greater Birmingham, The Black Country, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Warwickshire. From these, a panel of independent judges and Gallery staff selected 250 works for exhibition.

The West Midlands Open celebrates the quality, diversity and vibrancy of the local visual arts ecology and provides a platform and selling opportunity for artists in the region.

All works in the exhibition can be viewed below, ordered alphabetically by first name, and sorted via category;

Hannah Mary Taylor — The [ Hope ] Chest

Audio/visual

Hannah Mary Taylor — The [ Hope ] Chest

Audio/visual

Hannah Mary Taylor — The [ Hope ] Chest

Audio/visual ×
  • Artwork description:
    As a sufferer of chronic illness, there is always a permanent anxiety that my body will not hold me as I would like, or turn against me when I need it most. You begin to fear your own vessel. Then, during my first pregnancy in 2020, out of nowhere, the world was hit with Covid-19. Letters were sent, mine and 2.2 million other extremely vulnerable people began their isolation, their ‘shielding’ and waited. This piece examines the forgotten, unspoken, but very real realities of bringing life into the world, of being a vessel, a carrier, and simultaneously gives agency to voices of contemporary women and their lived experiences, whilst acknowledging the often-forgotten sacrifices made by women past, whose service to society in baring children was overshadowed by patriarchal expectation, anxiety and death. These chests, their empty interiors stand now like empty tombs, the bodies of which deserve commemoration.
  • Date:
    January 2022
  • Medium:
    Video and performance to camera
  • Category:
    Audio/visual
  • Website/s:
    https://www.hermasks.co.uk/

Hannah Parkes — LIGHT #1

Painting

Hannah Parkes — LIGHT #1

Painting

Hannah Parkes — LIGHT #1

Painting ×
  • Artwork description:
    'Light #1' depicts a minimal window structure with a view out to a warm toned sky. The painting invites the viewer to stop and spend a moment of quiet reflection. The structure guides the viewers gaze upwards out of the window, aiding the narrative of a grander structure beyond the canvas borders. Bold lines of architecture provide a sense of place and grounding. This is contrasted by the muted blend of colours that make up the sky. They provide a soothing warmth that is reminiscent of summer evenings and a lingering, low-lying sun.
  • Date:
    January 2022
  • Medium:
    Acrylic on Canvas
  • Category:
    Painting
  • Website/s:
    https://hannahparkes.co.uk

Hannah Parkes — LIGHT #2

Painting

Hannah Parkes — LIGHT #2

Painting

Hannah Parkes — LIGHT #2

Painting ×
  • Artwork description:
    'Light #2' depicts a minimal wall structure with a view overlooking a blended warm toned sky with translucent clouds. The painting invites the viewer to stop and spend a moment of quiet reflection. The structure provides a frame in which the viewer is able to gaze at the vista beyond. Bold lines of architecture provide a mixture of place and grounding combined with slight abstraction. Warm strips of orange bouncing from the sides of the structure provide insight into a setting sun to the right of the viewer. The light touch of clouds in the distance offer a glimpse of movement in what is a largely still scene. Blended colours of the sky further provide a soothing warmth that is reminiscent of summer evenings.
  • Date:
    January 2022
  • Medium:
    Acrylic on Canvas
  • Category:
    Painting
  • Website/s:
    https://hannahparkes.co.uk

Hannah Quill — Hang tight

Painting

Hannah Quill — Hang tight

Painting

Hannah Quill — Hang tight

Painting ×
  • Artwork description:
    Both ‘Where did it come from?’ and ‘Hang tight’ were created and completed mid pandemic. Varying in scale, surface, colour and materials, both paintings explore the structures and surfaces of bodily forms within. Investigating internal bodily processes, the process and medium of painting acts as a bodily medium itself. The title ‘Where did it come from?’ suggests the unknowing, capturing light, surroundings and tonal ranges. ‘Hang tight’ includes bodily structures gripping to the surface of the canvas, and the exploration of layering as a method.
  • Date:
    2021
  • Medium:
    PinkGrip, white acrylic paint and fluorescent pink pigment.
  • Category:
    Painting
  • Website/s:
    https://hannahquill.wixsite.com/hannahq

Hannah Quill — Where did it come from?

Painting

Hannah Quill — Where did it come from?

Painting

Hannah Quill — Where did it come from?

Painting ×
  • Artwork description:
    Both ‘Where did it come from?’ and ‘Hang tight’ were created and completed mid pandemic. Varying in scale, surface, colour and materials, both paintings explore the structures and surfaces of bodily forms within. Investigating internal bodily processes, the process and medium of painting acts as a bodily medium itself. The title ‘Where did it come from?’ suggests the unknowing, capturing light, surroundings and tonal ranges. ‘Hang tight’ includes bodily structures gripping to the surface of the canvas, and the exploration of layering as a method.
  • Date:
    2021
  • Medium:
    Oil on Canvas
  • Category:
    Painting
  • Website/s:
    https://hannahquill.wixsite.com/hannahq

Hannah Rollason — Encompass

Sculpture

Hannah Rollason — Encompass

Sculpture

Hannah Rollason — Encompass

Sculpture ×
  • Artwork description:
    ‘The Discourse of a Pumpkin’ is an evolving project including ‘A Plant. A Crop. A Commodity.’, ‘Blank Space’, ‘Encompass’ and ‘Humilis Cucurbita.’ The main emphasis is to raise questions surrounding agriculture, consumerism, and progression. This project explores the pumpkin as a symbol in society deriving from contextual references both historical and contemporary. Inspired by still life as an art form, ‘Encompass’ has evolved from the concept that natural forms and objects are embedded with connotations and denotations. Changing materials emphasis’ these semiotics, the form of the pumpkin remains. Organic matter is replaced by a mixture of clay and porcelain, creating contrast, being neither living nor dying. Stripped of boundaries, status, and value, to become something new. An alienation of what we know. The pumpkin continues to adapt both in its natural form and as a symbol, leading to question; where does this place the pumpkin post Anthropocene?
  • Date:
    January 2022
  • Medium:
    Mixed media
  • Category:
    Sculpture
  • Website/s:
    https://hannahrollason.wixsite.com/artist

Hazel E Hutchison — Route: glass landscape

Sculpture

Hazel E Hutchison — Route: glass landscape

Sculpture

Hazel E Hutchison — Route: glass landscape

Sculpture ×
  • Artwork description:
    My work Glass Landscape consists of seven glass photographic panels and serves as a smaller model for my larger artwork sculpture and photo book Route (2021). Route: Glass Landscape (2021) depicts a personal path of recovery resulting from my experiences with surgery and confinement during the lockdown. I wanted to highlight finding beauty indoors while juxtaposing domesticity with the outdoor environment. Walks in the countryside inspired me because I saw adaptability and endurance in rock formations or trees due to external factors, which I then related to my post-surgery body. When feeling trapped, I would photograph these adaptations to duplicate their forms with my body at home. I wanted to display my connection and admiration for nature and its ability to change, in the hopes of securing resilience for myself. The images are anchored upright to convey a feeling of strength and delicacy, as well as the sensation of being like a structure or my own unique universe.
  • Date:
    2021
  • Medium:
    Fused photographic glass, decal transfers, Analogue Photography
  • Category:
    Sculpture
  • Website/s:
    https://www.hazelhutchison.com/
  • https://www.instagram.com/imagesbyhaze_/
  • https://www.facebook.com/imagesbyhaze
  • https://twitter.com/HazelEHutchison

Hazel E Hutchison — Route

Print

Hazel E Hutchison — Route

Print

Hazel E Hutchison — Route

Print ×
  • Artwork description:
    Route 2021 illustrates a journey of personal recovery, which stemmed from surgical experiences in recent years and confinement during the pandemic. I have been drawing on lessons from resilience in nature, as a way of representing my own emotions and desire to adapt after life's challenges. I wanted to demonstrate a motivation to be out more in nature while inside during lockdown and to reflect the connection between myself, my body, and the adaptations found in the natural world. Conceptually, I decided to explore how external factors affect appearance and draw comparisons with my own body post-surgery; observing the idea that humans and nature both go through challenges. I wanted to showcase domesticity (which was my landscape during lockdown/surgery) by creating indoor self-portraiture influenced by a natural adaptation outside.
  • Date:
    2021
  • Medium:
    Book, Printed book, analogue photography
  • Category:
    Print
  • Website/s:
    https://www.hazelhutchison.com/
  • https://www.instagram.com/imagesbyhaze_/
  • https://www.facebook.com/imagesbyhaze
  • https://twitter.com/HazelEHutchison

Helen Cass — Folded Drawing Indigo

Drawing

Helen Cass — Folded Drawing Indigo

Drawing

Helen Cass — Folded Drawing Indigo

Drawing ×
  • Artwork description:
    The paper has been scored, folded and stained. A white ink line is drawn along the uppermost edge of the paper, traced from left to right horizontally across the page. This action is then repeated, each time trying to draw a steady, straight line across the surface. A fine mapping nib is dipped into the ink bottle and the line drawn as close to the line before as possible. A quasi-mechanical activity which is doomed to imperfection, but creates a field of frisson/noise/interference that is specifically autobiographic. Therefore the most systematic procedure is not merely pure process – it is actually producing a drawing that is intimately expressive.
  • Date:
    2021
  • Medium:
    Ink on Paper
  • Category:
    Drawing
  • Website/s:
    http://www.helencass.com

Helen Cass — Folded Drawing 3

Drawing

Helen Cass — Folded Drawing 3

Drawing

Helen Cass — Folded Drawing 3

Drawing ×
  • Artwork description:
    The paper is folded and stained, a wide nib has drawn a series of horizontal lines, then a layer of short black lines are overlayed onto the white lines with a fine mapping nib. The accumulation of so many similar lines create a field of visual noise.
  • Date:
    2021
  • Medium:
    Ink on Paper
  • Category:
    Drawing
  • Website/s:
    http://www.helencass.com

Helen Garbett — Limpet Ecosystem

Painting

Helen Garbett — Limpet Ecosystem

Painting

Helen Garbett — Limpet Ecosystem

Painting ×
  • Artwork description:
    'Limpet Ecosystem' is a watercolour painting which is part of a body of work investigating and illuminating the entangled relationship between humans and limpets over time. Limpets are commonly encountered all around Britain’s shoreline, seen in abundance clinging to rocky outcrops at low tide. So familiar in fact that they go largely unnoticed but, if given a little attention these fascinating creatures emerge in all sorts of other places, revealing a complex trail of archaeological, historical, ecological, scientific, cultural, and imaginary lines. My initial research shows that limpets have played a significant role in human history as food, fishing bait and grave offerings for example. They are also the focus of scientific research covering many disciplines including medicine, engineering, and marine ecology.
  • Date:
    January 2022
  • Medium:
    Watercolour
  • Category:
    Painting
  • https://twitter.com/HelenChanges
  • https://www.instagram.com/helenchanges/

Helen Grundy — The Last Can Of Gasoline

Mixed Media

Helen Grundy — The Last Can Of Gasoline

Mixed Media

Helen Grundy — The Last Can Of Gasoline

Mixed Media ×
  • Artwork description:
    This piece is part of a larger project, funded by The Arts Council. I have been given funding to create new work and develop my practice. I am currently working with discarded/found objects and then using them as a starting point to create narrative works that I am calling Eco Dramas. I wanted to use the vintage can of gasoline and imagine a scenario where this is the last can of gasoline left. I intially intended to place a collage inside the can but then decided to create a 3D installation, a miniature set. Using brown paper, blue tissue paper and collecting second hand Corgi cars I then made my own tiny ladders and barricades. I spent a long time playing with composition and then photographed the set and added collage figures digitally. The work references ideas about panic buying and also the film Mad Max where fighting over 'guzzolene' creates the breakdown of society.
  • Date:
    February 2022
  • Medium:
    found object/model making/collage/photography
  • Category:
    Mixed Media
  • Website/s:
    https://www.helengrundy.org
  • https://www.instagram.com/grundyhelen03
  • https://www.theasylumartgallery.com/the-spaces-inbetween
  • https://www.fcac.co.uk/artist/helen-grundy/

Ian Andrews — “Your guess” from the series “The Shuffle of things.”

Drawing

Ian Andrews — “Your guess” from the series “The Shuffle of things.”

Drawing

Ian Andrews — “Your guess” from the series “The Shuffle of things.”

Drawing ×
  • Artwork description:
    A 40-page hand-drawn book, white ink on black tissue paper, inspired by a “significance absence” of 2020.The large hadron Collider at CERN was turned off throughout the year while being upgraded to achieve higher energy levels necessary to search for the phenomena of dark matter. The drawings speculate what traces dark matter might leave and the white ink on the black ground reference cloud chamber images from the detectors of the late 19th Century. Just as the interactions of the elemental particles create matter and everyday reality so the book is created by interactions between the ink and the absorbent pages of tissue paper. The ink leaks through several pages leaving traces which guide the next sequence of images. Initially I limited my use of media, only pen and paper but this book reflects my recent work in adopting a richer range and use of materials in an attempt to embody the idea in the matter and “stuff” of drawing rather than just a coded graphic notation.
  • Date:
    2020
  • Medium:
    Hand-drawn artist book, 40 pages, white ink and black pen on black tissue paper.
  • Category:
    Drawing
  • Website/s:
    http://thesketchbookandthecollider.com/
  • https://twitter.com/IanAndrewsArt
  • https://www.facebook.com/thesketchbookandthecollider/

Imogen Morris — Michaela Coel

Mixed Media

Imogen Morris — Michaela Coel

Mixed Media

Imogen Morris — Michaela Coel

Mixed Media ×
  • Artwork description:
    Here I depict a portrait of actress and writer Michaela Coel. I deliberately chose Michaela Coel as, alongside being a talented and inspirational creative, Coel represents a type of female who is simultaneously bol and defiant but vulnerable and fragile. Her work tackles uncomfortable truths about the female experience in a confronting and stark way. I have made Coel’s portrait using nail and thread. My method of making consists of wrapping thread around nails which pinpoint the contours of the face to build up a mesh-like form made up of triangles. I build up layers and layers of these triangles to detail the subjects' features and create depth to the image. Alongside this I have added a second layer of coloured thread stitched into clear acrylic to distort the image of Coel beneath. The result being a bold but fragile depiction of a woman. While the triangular forms in the subject’s face are strong and harsh, they contrast with the delicacy in the materiality of the thread itself.
  • Date:
    20th February 2022
  • Medium:
    Nail, thread, acrylic on plywood board, framed in a MDF box frame
  • Category:
    Mixed Media
  • Website/s:
    http://www.imogenembroideryart.com

indie illo - Fleur Ward — Skyscape (Series 3)

Print

indie illo - Fleur Ward — Skyscape (Series 3)

Print

indie illo - Fleur Ward — Skyscape (Series 3)

Print ×
  • Artwork description:
    Skyscape (Series 3) is the latest print in an ongoing series of photographic screen prints I have been producing. I personally find looking at the sky quite peaceful and when I’m going through difficult times due to my mental health, I find that it calms and grounds me. I wanted to share this feeling through this print by utilising a circular shape to create a portal effect. As well as choosing a pink hues colour palette to mimic a dream-like effect. So far in this series of works this is the largest I’ve printed ones of these skyscapes. I though this exhibition would be the perfect opportunity to tackle something of this scale, as I hope people will be able to get lost in the detail and shapes in the image. This print was created using a photo of my own, which was converted into a halftone for use in a silk screen printing process.
  • Date:
    08�22022
  • Medium:
    Photographic Screen Print on Paper
  • Category:
    Print
  • Website/s:
    https://indieillo.myportfolio.com/

Isabelle Homer — A Gentle Push

Mixed Media

Isabelle Homer — A Gentle Push

Mixed Media

Isabelle Homer — A Gentle Push

Mixed Media ×
  • Artwork description:
    A Gentle Push (2021) represents the ship as the self, travelling through time. The pandemic offered the artist bittersweet feelings of being pushed onto new paths against her will, but found that the result was often beneficial once pushed. The imagery draws upon ancient textile tapestries and oceanographic maps, reflecting new discovery.
  • Date:
    2021
  • Medium:
    Metal threads, leather, cotton chenille, silk threads, beads on silk
  • Category:
    Mixed Media
  • Website/s:
    www.isabellehomercostumier.com

jack foster — Studio light still life

Painting

jack foster — Studio light still life

Painting

jack foster — Studio light still life

Painting ×
  • Artwork description:
    A still life painted during the winter of 2021/22 with changing light conditions
  • Date:
    February 2022
  • Medium:
    oil on canvas
  • Category:
    Painting

James Byrne — A Walk in the Park

Painting

James Byrne — A Walk in the Park

Painting

James Byrne — A Walk in the Park

Painting ×
  • Artwork description:
    The painting process and the physical expressive qualities of paint have always central to my practice .l do not wish to illustrate either a direct perceptual experience or conceptual idea.l think concepts develop out of the process itself which in turn gives rise to ideas . These small impasto oils are part of a current project preceded by three or four volumes of small drawings completed in situ in the local park during lockdown.The paintings themselves are produced in the studio where process ,media and physical action stimulate memory and imagination which in turn creates for me internally found images which often seem to be more authentic in recording my experience in the landscape.
  • Date:
    2022
  • Medium:
    Oil on canvas
  • Category:
    Painting
  • Website/s:
    http://jamesbyrneart.com

James Milichamp — The Eye Infirmary, Wolverhampton

Painting

James Milichamp — The Eye Infirmary, Wolverhampton

Painting

James Milichamp — The Eye Infirmary, Wolverhampton

Painting ×
  • Artwork description:
    This painting shows a detail of the Eye Infirmary on Chapel Ash, Wolverhampton. Objects, spaces and the Built environment are explored through this series of paintings. A play of light, a silhouette, a partially open door or broken window frame. These objects or places can be read as metaphors for isolation, abandonment and solitude. Amidst the howling storm of contemporary culture, the artist is separate, alone, a silent observer, cut off from the cacophonous noise of the human condition. Are we not all alone amongst the baying crowds? The ability to project gives the viewer a kind of ownership over the scene, thus allowing a more direct experience. Empty spaces, devoid of human life, freeze the echoes of human existence.
  • Date:
    November 2020
  • Medium:
    Mixed media
  • Category:
    Painting

James Milichamp — Girls’ High School, Doncaster

Painting

James Milichamp — Girls’ High School, Doncaster

Painting

James Milichamp — Girls’ High School, Doncaster

Painting ×
  • Artwork description:
    This is a painting of the Girls’ High School in Doncaster town centre, as it was undergoing demolition. Continuing this series, elements are deleted, obliterated or obscured. By redacting essential aspects of a scene; a line, the form, a detail, the thing described becomes lost but more present. It is the Absence of selective detail that engages – The sparsity in the work, that which is missing, forces the on-looker to fill in the gaps, facilitating a unique reading of the image, not as the artist saw it but as the viewer actively experiences it. If you depict an absence, you also reveal the presence.
  • Date:
    November 2020
  • Medium:
    Mixed media
  • Category:
    Painting

James Stacey — Vacant

Painting

James Stacey — Vacant

Painting

James Stacey — Vacant

Painting ×
  • Artwork description:
    This painting was created as part of my investigation into the ways different people acted on public transport. I found this image captivating of a young teenage girl completely absorbed and transfixed by social media. Even though there were so many different people on the bus everyone seemed to be so far away - disconnected almost. There was a misery which i looked to capture also, the monotony of an everyday routine to head to school. I could sense the female subject had become all too acustomed to this journey. I chose to paint this image onto defaced corrugated cardboard as this mirrored the withered and tired nature of the girl.
  • Date:
    30/1/2020
  • Medium:
    Oil paint
  • Category:
    Painting

James Turner — Cardboard Bundle

Print

James Turner — Cardboard Bundle

Print

James Turner — Cardboard Bundle

Print ×
  • Artwork description:
    ‘Cardboard Bundle’ 21, 5 colour screen-print on 270gsm bread and butter paper 500x686mm. My latest works are an attempt to find interesting sculptural forms in the everyday, showing scenes or objects boldly backlit with block colour to soften or frame, extenuating what I find interesting and posing the question: is this public art? Each image is the result of a deliberate act, for example the crushing and binding of the cardboard by shop workers to make the transportation of the material easier, or the person or persons pushing over traffic cones in the streets. I see myself as collaborating with these unknowing (and unknown) artists to record their public performances and installations. I created these works by using the process of screen-print; building layers and hand pulling each screen bringing a 2D print back into the realm of 3D. I also made multiple prints to make the work more widely accessible.
  • Date:
    December 21
  • Medium:
    Screen print
  • Category:
    Print
  • Website/s:
    https://press-file-print.com/

Jane Spence — Red Black Green

Painting

Jane Spence — Red Black Green

Painting

Jane Spence — Red Black Green

Painting ×
  • Artwork description:
    This is one of my smaller works developed from a cache of found images that I keep by me to help me conjure a sense of the strange, the uncanny: accepted reality skewed. Figures I am drawn to are generally hard to assign. They are androgynous, and have something of the Fae about them. They are the flash in the corner of our eye, an image not quite registered, a shadow that flickers behind a half open door.
  • Date:
    2022
  • Medium:
    oil on canvas
  • Category:
    Painting

Janette Summerfield — Windfalls

Painting

Janette Summerfield — Windfalls

Painting

Janette Summerfield — Windfalls

Painting ×
  • Artwork description:
    Windfalls These are Bramley cooking apples, from the tree at the bottom of my garden. Some fall to the ground and smash on impact, and what can’t be salvaged are eaten by the birds or composted. Others land on soft soil and are scooped up before they spoil. The lucky ones stay on the tree long enough to be picked from the branches. Whichever way they fall they are stored, frozen, or baked in a pie. I was particularly drawn to the patterns and blemishes on their skins, and chose to include a stainless steel jug to reflect their colours and distorted shapes. I cropped the image quite severely to create interesting shapes and to draw the viewer into the picture.
  • Date:
    November 2020
  • Medium:
    Pastel
  • Category:
    Painting
  • Website/s:
    https://www.jls-artist.uk

Jaskirt Boora — Jorvan

Photography

Jaskirt Boora — Jorvan

Photography

Jaskirt Boora — Jorvan

Photography ×
  • Artwork description:
    Cherry blossom trees and birdsong is a personal reflection of family life during 2020. After spending a year feeling guilty and conflicted for working more than spending time with my children, on 23rd March 2020 all that changed. Britain went into its first national lockdown and walks around the block became the norm. Bird song was now the sound of the streets. The contrasting emotions of seeing beauty in the everyday but knowing of this horror gripping the world was difficult to comprehend and process. Yet I selfishly got to spend the quality time with them I had felt torn about all year. Seeing them grow, play and build their relationship was special. And whilst there was joy and warmth in those summer months, there was also moments of frustration, boredom and worry as the repetition of lockdown continued. As we move into the 2nd year of the pandemic it’s hard to fathom what the lasting impact of it will be on this younger generation.
  • Date:
    11/05/2020
  • Medium:
    Photography
  • Category:
    Photography
  • Website/s:
    https://www.jaskirtboora.com/

Jennifer Wallace — Our Earthly Delights

Mixed Media

Jennifer Wallace — Our Earthly Delights

Mixed Media

Jennifer Wallace — Our Earthly Delights

Mixed Media ×
  • Artwork description:
    'Our Earthly Delights' was made in April 2021 in response to Quebec Collage's open call to celebrate World Collage Day that year using a palette referencing Picasso's blue period. Selected submissions (including mine) were shown in an online exhibition: http://quebeccollage.com/projets/bleu-world-collage-day-2021/ The materials are typical of my collages: the relatively small amount of print material I acquire in my daily life plus bits from magazines passed on by my sister. This recycling of print material from my own life is a key quality of my collages. Each piece of paper selected has meaning connected to its origins as well as to the COVID-19 pandemic, and its connections with several features of our complex relationship with our earthly environment. As with Picasso's Blue Period works, images made in a very negative context can, though, hold attention long enough for us to move deeper into and beyond our first reactions of despair.
  • Date:
    April 2021
  • Medium:
    analogue collage of found papers on cardboard
  • Category:
    Mixed Media
  • https://www.instagram.com/whichjennifer/
  • https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100048943367967

Jenny Suffield — Chairs

Painting

Jenny Suffield — Chairs

Painting

Jenny Suffield — Chairs

Painting ×
  • Artwork description:
    The painting considers the domestic space and furniture in the home. The chairs begin to take on the human characteristics of the occupiers as they are caught in the morning light. The paint application plays with the textures of the medium thickly applied in the sunlight, over thin layers in the shadows.
  • Date:
    November 2021
  • Medium:
    Oil paint on canvas
  • Category:
    Painting

Jenny Suffield — Solitaire

Painting

Jenny Suffield — Solitaire

Painting

Jenny Suffield — Solitaire

Painting ×
  • Artwork description:
    The growing up of children into young adults, learning independence, at moments holding onto games enjoyed as youngsters though at the same time wanting to be treated as adults. The painting explores the application of paint between the shadows and the sunlight.
  • Date:
    November 2021
  • Medium:
    Oil paint on canvas
  • Category:
    Painting

Jodie Wingham — Hand Study

Print

Jodie Wingham — Hand Study

Print

Jodie Wingham — Hand Study

Print ×
  • Artwork description:
    Mokulito or what is known as wood lithography is a relatively new technique within printmaking originating in the 1970’s in Japan. The process itself is labour intensive creating the image from the artists own photographs, transferring this onto a plywood plate, processing and leaving it for several weeks to mature and then printing the image for the final result. The process allows for seductive washes and marks to be created which is commonly associated with the lithographic technique, the wood allows for another element to be included which is the wooden grain. Specifically chosen for this particular image, the process allows the woodgrain to become part of the image, these delicate lines bare a visual similarity to the lines of our hands referencing back to image. What this particular gesture reveals is left open to question, asking whether what is revealed refers to a universal language we all come to understand and be able to read or is based more on our subjective experiences.
  • Date:
    2021
  • Medium:
    photographic mokulito on paper
  • Category:
    Print
  • Website/s:
    https://www.jodiewingham.com/

Jodie Wingham — Nestle

Print

Jodie Wingham — Nestle

Print

Jodie Wingham — Nestle

Print ×
  • Artwork description:
    Mokulito or what is known as wood lithography is a relatively new technique within printmaking originating in the 1970’s in Japan. The process itself is labour intensive creating the image from the artists own photographs, transferring this onto a plywood plate, processing and leaving it for several weeks to mature and then printing the image for the final result. The process allows for seductive washes and marks to be created which is commonly associated with the lithographic technique, the wood allows for another element to be included which is the wooden grain. Specifically chosen for this particular image, the process allows the woodgrain to become part of the image, these delicate lines bare a visual similarity to the lines of our hands referencing back to image. Nestle captures the gentle embrace between a couple, intimate and though provoking.
  • Date:
    2022
  • Medium:
    photographic mokulito on paper
  • Category:
    Print
  • Website/s:
    https://www.jodiewingham.com/

John Davenport — Clive Beardsmore with beard

Print

John Davenport — Clive Beardsmore with beard

Print

John Davenport — Clive Beardsmore with beard

Print ×
  • Artwork description:
    John created this linocut portrait from a life study of Clive Beardsmore. He selected the work for submission to the West Midlands Open Exhibition because of Clive’s long and distinguished association with both the Old and New Walsall Art Galleries and the Garman Ryan Collection. Clive’s interventions at the gallery are some of the highlights of his donation of 200 artworks he made to the gallery in 2014 which form the largest individual donation to Walsall’s collection since the Garman Ryman Collection itself. Clive worked in the Old Walsall Art Gallery in the 1970s and was Assistant to the then Curator Michael Mosesson at the time Walsall received Kathleen Garman’s gift
  • Date:
    Jan 2022
  • Medium:
    Linocut
  • Category:
    Print
  • Website/s:
    http://www.commissionaportrait.com/artistsportfolio.asp?id=134&ref=srch&seq=134

John Devane — Study for a portrait

Painting

John Devane — Study for a portrait

Painting

John Devane — Study for a portrait

Painting ×
  • Artwork description:
    This is a portrait study. The picture has been developed over a number of weeks and the image has undergone a number of significant changes. It struck me that the frontal pose of the figure suggests a sense of confrontation degree or even apprehension perhaps. The table and palette in the foreground provides a foil to the figure and helps articulate the space beyond. To the right. there is a corridor which also adds to the spatial tension within the picture.
  • Date:
    2022
  • Medium:
    oil on stretched canvas
  • Category:
    Painting

Julie Sommerville — Seven Stones Drive

Painting

Julie Sommerville — Seven Stones Drive

Painting

Julie Sommerville — Seven Stones Drive

Painting ×
  • Artwork description:
    This is a painting of a 1960's chair that was located at my favourite home "Seven Stones Drive". The leather was so worn it was thin with age and had turned white. When I inherited the chair around 20 years later, I had it re-upholstered in soft leather but it never really felt the same to sit in. But when my sons were little, we would sit in it all together at bedtime, read a story or two whilst putting our feet up on the matching footstool. The background was painted with acrylic and vinyl stencil sections were then cut and stuck to the background. I then used a stipple brush and two different shades of Farrow and Ball emulsion to administer the pattern. Each stencil section needed two coats. I then painted the chair using a wet on wet oil paint adding much detail and softness to the leather and hopefully an interesting contrast to the flatly presented wall. The floor boards are in oil paint, with a bright under painting of orange and burnt umber worked into it when dry.
  • Date:
    3rd February 2022
  • Medium:
    Oil, acrylic and emulsion
  • Category:
    Painting

Kate Hall — A Girl

Painting

Kate Hall — A Girl

Painting

Kate Hall — A Girl

Painting ×
  • Artwork description:
    I quite often isolate my figures from their backgrounds. This is one of three painted drawings that I made in 2020 using me and my twin brother as models. It is a drawing on grey board coloured in with gesso and acrylic . It is very simple a figure study and I like the awkward pose and low view point .
  • Date:
    2020
  • Medium:
    Gesso and graphite on grey board with acrylic
  • Category:
    Painting

Kathryn Sawbridge — 310122-1740

Other

Kathryn Sawbridge — 310122-1740

Other

Kathryn Sawbridge — 310122-1740

Other ×
  • Artwork description:
    My work explores various landscapes and scenes, stripping them back to their basic colour palettes without the details of a realistic image. My pieces aim to encourage the viewer to look beyond the details and explore their environment on a deeper level, without the everyday distractions. My work is made using paper as this allows me to work quickly in capturing the exact colours of the landscape at a point in time. This particular piece shows a slow sunset at the end of January over Bloxwich whilst waiting for the train.
  • Date:
    2022
  • Medium:
    Paper
  • Category:
    Other
  • https://www.saatchiart.com/K.E.S

Kathryn Sawbridge — Marking Time

Other

Kathryn Sawbridge — Marking Time

Other

Kathryn Sawbridge — Marking Time

Other ×
  • Artwork description:
    This artwork uses images from calendars saved over a period of 10 years by my Grandmother. These images have been brought together to create a new scene which at first glance appears to look a very realistic scene however once looked at in more detail the image is more surreal. The overall composition entices the viewer to look at the work closer each time they see it, rather than think it is yet another purely pretty landscape photograph.
  • Date:
    2022
  • Medium:
    Collage
  • Category:
    Other
  • https://www.saatchiart.com/K.E.S

Keisha Tulloch — Unknown Departure

Photography

Keisha Tulloch — Unknown Departure

Photography

Keisha Tulloch — Unknown Departure

Photography ×
  • Artwork description:
    The focus of this body of work is addressing the human relationship with nature/space & the relationship between beauty and significance by bringing attention to outside space including groves and merged, intertwined branches in nature reserves. The idea of photographing how nature has been left to evolve and change in its own way is just so satisfying as they haven’t been touched by the human hand after being planted there for hundreds of years so the feeling of walking through sublime can never be pinpointed but leaves you with a sense of internal reconnection while being an inherently natural force. This large print examines the way that sublime landscapes are one that is very unfamiliar to many so through this, I want to bring together the reality of existence and the beautiful significance that evolved landscapes shouldn’t be hidden as something dark and socially constructed. The sublime should be appreciated and kept in the light with immense nobility.
  • Date:
    29th November 2021
  • Medium:
    Medium format
  • Category:
    Photography

Kevin Line — Winter of days 1

Drawing

Kevin Line — Winter of days 1

Drawing

Kevin Line — Winter of days 1

Drawing ×
  • Artwork description:
    In a departure from my normal portrait and figure paintings this series of autobiographical works reflect my emotional state at the end of a long period of lockdown and ill health. The louring dark hulks of buildings lurking in the dark exude no warmth. No lit window hints at human presence and potential welcome. The awareness of mortality and sense of cold, dark isolation from the rest of humanity pervade the deliberately monochrome drawings. The endless night awaits.
  • Date:
    January 2022
  • Medium:
    Charcoal and ink on paper
  • Category:
    Drawing
  • Website/s:
    http://www.kevinline-portraits.co.uk

Kurt Hickson — Supernova

Sculpture

Kurt Hickson — Supernova

Sculpture

Kurt Hickson — Supernova

Sculpture ×
  • Artwork description:
    Made out of chip forks set into a painted polystyrene ball, Supernova (2021) explores non-traditional materials and basic found objects. Creating something out of almost nothing, I feel the work reflects our current times of ‘just getting by’ and ‘making do with what we have’. The simplicity and silliness of things as trivial and everyday as chip forks used to suggest something as monumental as an exploding star underlines the importance of humour and scaling down in our daily lives.
  • Date:
    2021
  • Medium:
    wooden chip forks, acrylic on polystyrene
  • Category:
    Sculpture

Leah Hickey — Eulogy

Mixed Media

Leah Hickey — Eulogy

Mixed Media

Leah Hickey — Eulogy

Mixed Media ×
  • Artwork description:
    'Eulogy' is an organic lamentation upon bereavement following the very recent loss of my Father. The artwork reflects upon this sudden change with conflicting sorrow and joy, striving to illustrate a nuanced depiction of a man reluctant to share. Within the past few years, text work has become a foundational component of my artistic practice as a means of catharsis and exorcising emotional trauma. This work stems from a larger collection of autobiographical writing I have been developing surrounding personal experiences of trauma and loss as a young woman. 'Eulogy' is to be self-published later this year as part of an anthology aptly titled 'Grief (In Few Forms)'. I had made the decision to read this work at my Father's funeral, hence the title.
  • Date:
    2022
  • Medium:
    Matte giclée print on paper, wooden lectern
  • Category:
    Mixed Media
  • Website/s:
    https://www.leahhickey.com/

Leanne Taylor — Solitary

Photography

Leanne Taylor — Solitary

Photography

Leanne Taylor — Solitary

Photography ×
  • Artwork description:
    This photograph is part of an ongoing documentary project of mine titled 'solitary'. It is well known that our society is sadly full of loneliness, and as humanity shrouds itself in social media, the real world seems bleak and empty but in fact its full of beauty and peace. This photo encapsulates the essence of being alone but not lonely. This is a grabbed documentary photo at the national war memorial. This young man caught my eye and I had to capture his life in my camera as he stood reading the leaflet about the graves around him. I assume he was looking for friends or family as he would always have them in his heart and never be alone.
  • Date:
    17/10/2021
  • Medium:
    DSLR Camera
  • Category:
    Photography
  • https://www.facebook.com/TheLensAdventure/?ref=page_internal

Lewis Graham — A sense of hope

Drawing

Lewis Graham — A sense of hope

Drawing

Lewis Graham — A sense of hope

Drawing ×
  • Artwork description:
    A sense of hope captures a storm over a vast landscape. The rising sun in the background and a path leading to the woods break up the composition and relate to the concept of hope. The work is charcoal combined with water washes in between layers to create depth and texture throughout.
  • Date:
    26/10/21
  • Medium:
    Charcoal on canvas
  • Category:
    Drawing
  • https://www.instagram.com/lewisgraham_studios/

Lewis Graham — Memory loss

Print

Lewis Graham — Memory loss

Print

Lewis Graham — Memory loss

Print ×
  • Artwork description:
    The work looks at an explosive skyscape, a place which I have been to before but cannot quite map the location. The title 'memory loss' looks into the ways in which people remember fragments of places or subtle details of areas which they explore throughout their lifetime. The blurred vision of a place that is left behind creates the memory that is once forgotten.
  • Date:
    6/12/21
  • Medium:
    monotype print - oil based printing ink
  • Category:
    Print
  • https://www.instagram.com/lewisgraham_studios/

Lilli Whitham — Your Poor

Photography

Lilli Whitham — Your Poor

Photography

Lilli Whitham — Your Poor

Photography ×
  • Artwork description:
    The photograph captures a boarded up window display, the window has been painted roughly so a passer-by can't see inside. Scratched into the paint are the words 'Your Poor'. Although this appears to be a grammar mistake, it feels indicative of the economic decline in the neighbourhood and local high street that belong to the community. It is 'your poor', your problem, your community, your experience.
  • Date:
    2020
  • Medium:
    Photographic Print
  • Category:
    Photography

Lily Victoria Purslow — Self-Reflection

Mixed Media

Lily Victoria Purslow — Self-Reflection

Mixed Media

Lily Victoria Purslow — Self-Reflection

Mixed Media ×
  • Artwork description:
    Self-Reflection depicts a personal study which considers significant life changes from the past year, and how I have adapted to them. I have referred to ‘colour psychology’ and each colour used in paint and thread refers to specific emotions: Yellow - positivity and enthusiasm, turquoise - stability, blue - healing, navy - sadness and security, purple - sensitivity, cream/white - calm and maturity, black - control and fear. Thread sequences and repetitive motifs throughout the work refer to reoccurring events, and the layering of stitches represents the complexity of the events which have defined the past year. Abstract shapes refer to constant development and change. I am hoping viewers can recognise the intricacy and complicated imagery and together with the title form their own conclusion as to the meanings behind the composition and its importance.
  • Date:
    2022
  • Medium:
    calico, watercolour, thread
  • Category:
    Mixed Media
  • Website/s:
    https://www.lilypurslowart.co.uk/

Linda Nevill — Rising

Mixed Media

Linda Nevill — Rising

Mixed Media

Linda Nevill — Rising

Mixed Media ×
  • Artwork description:
    After a long period of near silent stagnation the city starts to rise again. Positive activity of both physical building construction but also re-building of lives out of a time of paralysis.
  • Date:
    2021
  • Medium:
    Mixed media collage
  • Category:
    Mixed Media
  • Website/s:
    https://www.lindanevill.com/

Lindsay Pritchard — The Ghost of You

Painting

Lindsay Pritchard — The Ghost of You

Painting

Lindsay Pritchard — The Ghost of You

Painting ×
  • Artwork description:
    'The Ghost of You' is a mixed media painting that resulted from collaborating with local poet Leanne Cooper who documents her struggles with her mental health through her poetry. Her poem 'The Darkness' is about depression, describing its physical effects and how it slowly seeps in and changes a person and it inspired me to convey these dark effects on a person through my painting. The background is multi layered with extracts of the poem, stencilling, bus tickets and other papers that related to the body of the poem. These were then painted over with acrylic paint, sanded back to reveal parts of the collage and then in parts repainted over to create a worn broken surface echoing the fragility of the person depicted in the poem. It seemed fitting to paint the face of a person partially emerging from the broken surface as if the ghost of the person is emerging from the darkness. I deliberately kept the person genderless enabling all viewers to be able to connect with the painting.
  • Date:
    September 2021
  • Medium:
    Mixed Media
  • Category:
    Painting
  • Website/s:
    https://www.lindsaypritchardart.co.uk

Lisa Davies — Baba Yaga’s House

Mixed Media

Lisa Davies — Baba Yaga’s House

Mixed Media

Lisa Davies — Baba Yaga’s House

Mixed Media ×
  • Artwork description:
    This is an embroidered artwork depicting the house of Baba Yaga, a witch often found in Slavic folklore. The story goes that she lives in an old wooden hut that struts around the forest on chicken legs. The artwork started as a pencil drawing, which I then processed through embroidery computer software. Material is then hooped up and embroidered, sections at a time. For the chicken legs, I stuck down black chiffon fabric before stitching, then used a teasle brush to pull away fibres to create texture. Once the machine embroidery was finished, I added extra detail with hand embroidery, for effects that can't be done by machine.
  • Date:
    2021
  • Medium:
    Embroidery on cotton
  • Category:
    Mixed Media
  • Website/s:
    https://www.lisamariedavies.com

Lois Hopwood — Playing in the ruins

Other

Lois Hopwood — Playing in the ruins

Other

Lois Hopwood — Playing in the ruins

Other ×
  • Artwork description:
    Late last year I went to Tintern Abbey with Hereford Sixth form as visiting Artist . This is a 3D card model of Tintern Abbey with two small children playing in the ruins . When the students from Hereford Sixth form visited the Abbey they had to work with it as the subject for a 'sense of place' and it just felt so alien and empty. So that after extolling them to collage at college, I went away and began to repopulate the ruins with collaged people from an old National geographic magazine which immediately turned it into a small story telling set design. This image had a working title of 'No Ball Games'.
  • Date:
    February 2022
  • Medium:
    Card model
  • Category:
    Other

Lois Hopwood — The Sea

Other

Lois Hopwood — The Sea

Other

Lois Hopwood — The Sea

Other ×
  • Artwork description:
    Late last year I went to Tintern Abbey with Hereford Sixth form as visiting Artist . The building was beautiful, very stony and apart from us, very empty. Reflecting on world religions , that at their beginning all religions seem to have a charismatic leader and need a lot of people to follow , I have put the people back into the Abbey , they are in the Sea and they are the Sea. This model is a cardboard cut out collage using my photographs of the Abbey and a beach scene from a 1983 National Geographic magazine.
  • Date:
    February 2022
  • Medium:
    Card and photocopies
  • Category:
    Other

1 2 3 4 5 6