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;

Sarah Fortes Mayer — mum

Sarah Fortes Mayer — mum

Painting

Sarah Fortes Mayer — mum

Painting

Artwork description:
mum started out as a portrait of my mother when she was 30 years old. Initially in charcoal. I did not feel I was capturing her, except her penetrating eyes, her gaze does not falter. As I worked I was becoming angry about Covid and the restrictions. I felt I was losing precious time when who knows how much longer I will have. I hate wearing masks and in anger I wiped out the mouth as I felt we were not being heard or seen. The elderly were being wiped out again. This image has a slight resemblance to The Queen and on reflection I have always felt that she is gagged not free to speak her mind.
Date:
2020/21
Medium:
Acrylic on canvas
Category:
Painting

Saranjit Birdi — Just One More Tune

Saranjit Birdi — Just One More Tune

Painting

Saranjit Birdi — Just One More Tune

Painting

Artwork description:
After suffering isolation and alienation through the last two years of the pandemic, this painting series, ‘The Dance’, explores the euphoria, intimacy and intensity of the night club dance scene pre-Covid and the longing for the energy of physical proximity. The work also reflects on Birdi’s experiences of disco dancing from the late 1970s to the present, being an active member of the UK underground jazz-fusion dance scene, especially Birmingham, from 2000 to now. He has a mention in ‘From Jazz Funk & Fusion To Acid Jazz: The History Of The UK Jazz Dance Scene’ by Mark Cotgrove,(2009)
Date:
December 2021
Medium:
Acrylic on paper
Category:
Painting
Website/s:
https://saranjit.birdi@btinternet.com https://axisweb.org/p/saranjitbirdi
https://www.instagram.com/saranjitbirdi/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/saranjitbirdi/

Sharon Ryal — ICE

Sharon Ryal — ICE

Painting

Sharon Ryal — ICE

Painting

Artwork description:
Abstract acrylic on canvas - 94cm x 94cm - part of a set of paintings depicting the effects of climate change, ICE is a stand alone piece painted in 2021 as part of my show for level 4 Fine Art at Wolverhampton University.
Date:
Nov 2021
Medium:
Acrylic on canvas
Category:
Painting
https://www.instagram.com/shazzamart/

Sharon Ryal — HOME

Sharon Ryal — HOME

Painting

Sharon Ryal — HOME

Painting

Artwork description:
Oil on MDF - 28cm x 61cm - part of a set of paintings depicting the effects of climate change, HOME was painted in 2021, one of the first paintings I did at the start of my BA in Fine art at Wolverhampton University. A highly textured painting, HOME is part of the Ice & Fire series.
Date:
Oct 2021
Medium:
Oil on MDF
Category:
Painting
https://www.instagram.com/shazzamart/

Shaun Hughes — Mind Paths

Shaun Hughes — Mind Paths

Painting

Shaun Hughes — Mind Paths

Painting

Artwork description:
This small watercolour is part of my 'pathway' series. It explores imaginary paths, routes and connections. It is inspired by reading about neural pathways in the brain. For me it is a kind of a depiction of the brain but also represents complex city type areas contrasted with calmer and more ordered environments. The centre of the image is a mass of confused and congested paths (thoughts) cut across by large sweeping ring roads. The colours are warm greens and reds as opposed to the cooler blues and blacks of the areas outside of the brain.
Date:
2021
Medium:
Watercolour and Pen
Category:
Painting

Shaun Morris — Zona

Shaun Morris — Zona

Painting

Shaun Morris — Zona

Painting

Artwork description:
I see myself as a painter of landscapes, although I strive to avoid many of the associations with the tradition of landscape painting. I don’t paint the seemingly picturesque; the bucolic countryside or the dramatic coast as, from my surburban home, I don’t live anywhere near these places. I prefer to paint the landmarks of the Supermarket car-park, the local bus stop or the disused telephone box. I may paint nature, but it’s the nature of the common edgelands and woods, or the nature found down by the canals or underneath the motorways and at the feet of the pylons that loom dumbly and menacingly on the edge of the housing estates. In my painting I want to see my everyday experience reflected back, but also to find the myriad stories and histories locked in or buried in the ruins of the post-industrial landscape.
Date:
2021
Medium:
Oil on Canvas
Category:
Painting
Website/s:
https://www.shaunmorrispaintings.com

Shaun Morris — Highway Anxiety

Shaun Morris — Highway Anxiety

Painting

Shaun Morris — Highway Anxiety

Painting

Artwork description:
I see myself as a painter of landscapes, although I strive to avoid many of the associations with the tradition of landscape painting. I don’t paint the seemingly picturesque; the bucolic countryside or the dramatic coast as, from my surburban home, I don’t live anywhere near these places. I prefer to paint the landmarks of the Supermarket car-park, the local bus stop or the disused telephone box. I may paint nature, but it’s the nature of the common edgelands and woods, or the nature found down by the canals or underneath the motorways and at the feet of the pylons that loom dumbly and menacingly on the edge of the housing estates. In my painting I want to see my everyday experience reflected back, but also to find the myriad stories and histories locked in or buried in the ruins of the post-industrial landscape.
Date:
2021
Medium:
oil on canvas
Category:
Painting
Website/s:
https://www.shaunmorrispaintings.com

Shirley Szwarc — Woodland Tree

Shirley Szwarc — Woodland Tree

Painting

Shirley Szwarc — Woodland Tree

Painting

Artwork description:
I regularly sit in woodland to draw trees, my favourite medium is charcoal. A few years ago I attended a screen print workshop and used some of my charcoal drawings to create prints. During lockdown I used one of the imperfect prints as a starting point to this painting. I wanted to create an imagined environment which captured the rich textures and enveloped the viewer, similar to what I experience when out drawing. I used some of my charcoal drawings for reference.
Date:
Summer 2021
Medium:
Acrylic
Category:
Painting

Stella Carr — Moon Tempest II

Stella Carr — Moon Tempest II

Painting

Stella Carr — Moon Tempest II

Painting

Artwork description:
A landscape at night during Storm Eunice under a full moon with tempestuous clouds racing, obliterating the light from the moon for sometimes minutes then illuminating the landscape detail. Working in moonlight enables colour and texture to be stripped down to a felt resonance rather than a visual one. The foreground is a merge of ghost figures and thick foliage with the silhouettes of distant buildings offering thin protection from the elements and the spirits that pass through. Fundamentally a view of the vibrational effect the world is made up of. This painting speaks of the symbiotic relationship we have with our environment, we the ‘audience’ become ‘participants’. This boundary-less connection with ecology takes its form from a sensed system that we all cohabit. Ecosystems are blurred edges; multitudes of species, each growing with individual characteristics, whilst existing as one linked system. This is an image of what we cannot see yet feel.
Date:
2022
Medium:
Body colour, Gouache, Walnut Ink
Category:
Painting
Website/s:
stellacarr.co.uk

Steve Coel — Wildmoor Pool, Long Mynd

Steve Coel — Wildmoor Pool, Long Mynd

Painting

Steve Coel — Wildmoor Pool, Long Mynd

Painting

Artwork description:
Formerly a place of industry and hard labour. The landscape retains all the marks as nature slowly erases the memories.
Date:
2021
Medium:
Oil on Panel
Category:
Painting

Stuart Brambell — 60’s Wallpaper

Stuart Brambell — 60’s Wallpaper

Painting

Stuart Brambell — 60’s Wallpaper

Painting

Artwork description:
This work is also in three parts. An image of Lee Harvey Oswold getting assassinated while leaving the courthouse, a detail of an Edouard Manet painting of a dead bull fighter and a pop graphic image of a Greek classical sculpture. Again, I am providing the audience with tools to unpick the narratives themselves. There is not one singular narrative in art, and I want the viewer to glean what they can with the tools I have provided them.
Date:
2021
Medium:
Oil on Canvas
Category:
Painting
Website/s:
https://stuartbrambell.wixsite.com/mysite

Susan Krejzl — Three yellows and a grey

Susan Krejzl — Three yellows and a grey

Painting

Susan Krejzl — Three yellows and a grey

Painting

Artwork description:
This painting has been formed by the preparation of a wooden block through cutting and sanding to create an almost egg shell surface. The surface was primed and then layered with egg tempera applied with small brush strokes to create a skien of colour, finally layered with a protective skin of beeswax. There is no system behind the making other than an intuition. The surface brush strokes employed three yellows and a grey. When placed the yellow gently pools reflectively on the wall surface.The facets of the paintings pick up the light and the light causes shadows. This piece provides a more intimate looking, It is not just a marker for a larger space but a small moment that offers some time for contemplation. I see my work as detailed and delicate and very much about noticing and paying attention. The act of making is in itself political, but here is the quiet ‘politics’ of small everyday acts, often unnoticed, but cared for.
Date:
2021
Medium:
Egg tempera over wood
Category:
Painting
Website/s:
http://www.ahskeditions.co.uk

Vicky Wyton-Mills — Beneath the Ballroom

Vicky Wyton-Mills — Beneath the Ballroom

Painting

Vicky Wyton-Mills — Beneath the Ballroom

Painting

Artwork description:
This is painted from a photograph that I took at Edgbaston reservoir as it goes beneath the now derelict Tower Ballroom. The pigeon in flight was a happy accident. I am always drawn to turn up the volume on the beautiful colours in the shadows in urban decay and here they complimented the algae on the concrete posts disappearing into the water. The extinction rebellion graffiti made me contemplate on the extinction of the fun times that many Brummies remember from the Ballrooms heydays. I aimed for the composition to express the weight of all that concrete, the figure giving it scale and the cold reflected January light and the bird in flight suggesting hope and release from the darkness. Who knows perhaps the building will be saved and reinvented?
Date:
January 2021
Medium:
oil (water soluble) on linen board
Category:
Painting

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