Autumn 2023 ‘Caught in Flight’
Open every day 11am – 5pm through h.Art week
As the evenings start to draw in, our thoughts turn to home and a good fire in the hearth. To set the scene we mark the beauty of the changes of the season, and introduce our special Autumn Exhibition combined with h.Art entitled ‘Caught in Flight’ which opens on Saturday September 2nd at Old Chapel Gallery, Pembridge, promoting the work of talented British artists and makers from around the county and beyond.
Heading the line up is artist Lynda Jones. Her mysterious canvases and drawings are mostly depictions of the Monmouth landscape, and its rolling hills, that surrounds her – the final image often bears little relation to the original subject but all have a common starting point – the memory of a place she knows well. Even when working on a larger scale, a tiny detail, such as a soaring kite, will intrigue and draw the viewer in.
New to the gallery is stained glass artist Jane Littlefield. Inspired by the nature, history and folklore of her home in the Peak District and deeply influenced by medieval stained glass, using age old techniques, she has developed her own contemporary style in which traditional glass paints create multi-layered and textured images on small panels that are then fired in the kiln.
Sought-after Herefordshire stained glass maker Tamsin Abbott will be showing several pieces. Influenced by the natural world and its associated myths and legends, she tries to imbue her work with a sense of these magical qualities which connect humankind to the landscape while doing justice to the alchemical qualities of the glass itself.
Kathryn O’Kell has been making woodcarvings for over 30 years. In a methodical, almost meditative process, she transforms her chosen medium, specifically English lime, into carefully sanded and painted pieces. She has only to look out of her shed window and her inspiration, the birds that have always fascinated her, can be found flying past, circling overhead or resting on the woodshed.
Printmaker Flora McLachlan’s work grows out of the experience of observing the landscape and the process of translating this experience into print. As she works on her etchings, she wants to evoke a single charmed moment out of time, a magical vision that stills. The scene is our ancient and enchanted landscape, roamed by guardian spirit-like animals, shadowed by woods where the holly springs green amongst the bare oaks and beeches.
Helen Martino describes her pots as “serious, posh and frivolous’, using hand building techniques with soft and flexible sheets of clay, freely cut and manipulated. She plays with perspective by distorting the objects as in a stage set. By inclination she is also a painter, and views these flattened forms as three dimensional canvases, painted with slips, underglaze pigments, and resists with accents of silver and gold lustres.
Rachel Wright is inspired by many subjects, including landscapes, seascapes, wildlife, harbour towns, boats, lighthouses and windmills. These themes are then translated into machine embroidered fabric collages that are lively and swirling with movement, with vibrant threads used like a fine paintbrush to fill in the details, worked onto carefully cut pieces of fabric. This enables Rachel to draw and paint through fabric and stitch, providing a rich source of colour, texture and pattern which forms her ‘palette’.
