Elemental
Maddie Webb, Francine Brown,
Lucinda Batchelore & Yardstick Gallery
Wednesday, 10am - 5pm
Thursday, 10am - 8pm
Friday, 10am - 8pm
Saturday, 10am - 8pm
Sunday, 10am - 5pm
Monday, 10am - 5pm
Tuesday 10am - 1pm
An exciting art exhibition of new paintings, photography and ceramics. A group of contemporary artists showing together for the first time Spring.
Maddie Webb told us,
‘My paintings are a synthesis of places experienced and imagined. Light, colour and atmosphere intrigue and fascinate me. My artistic style is suggestive of the intensity of abstract expressionism, softened with the mood of subdued tonalism. I work instinctively, reacting to and shaping the surface. It is important that my work becomes its own story and has its own energy.
I begin outside immersed in the landscape; small works become the basis for larger works in the studio. I work intuitively building up free gestural marks which are then shaped and tamed with the softness of a brush. Some of the most interesting results are haphazard and accidental. Paints are used in ethereal glazes, revealing or concealing areas, creating textural qualities which help to translate my experiences.Then the essence of the landscape appears.
The Sublime is something I feel when overwhelmed and in awe of the landscape. Something as colossal as experiencing a glacier in Iceland or out walking noticing frost has touched the trees. For me the Sublime is nature seen and experienced in a moment; primordial and uncomplicated. Put simply, it is this that I try to paint.’
Francine Brown is a British artist who currently lives in Warwickshire, England, with her husband and two children. Francine began her design career when she was awarded a BA Honours degree in Illustration in 2000 before joining a top London design agency. Shesubsequently enjoyed a variety of roles within an ever-changing design world, adding Graphic Design and Visual Communication to her skill set.
She told us ‘The varied roles throughout my career have allowed me to explore and push my own creative boundaries, it’s been an integral part of where I am today. I always knew I would go back to painting one day and I made that decision in 2020. Although I initially trained in oils I started to experiment with other less harmful mediums and it was on this journey I found the delicate properties of watercolours against a clay and mineral ground best suited my vision; the soft veils of colour, naturally illuminated by the clay offered an oneiric quality to my work.’
Photographer Lucinda Batchelor told us,
‘The beautifully poetic French word for twilight is 'l'heure entre chien et loup, or 'the hour between the dog and the wolf' The phrase describes the approaching dark as a time when things move from familiar to wild, or when the failing light means it's hard to distinguish between a dog and a wolf.
This phrase feeds into my passions for nature and photography and describes perfectly how light changes everything, which is why I became a photographer.’
For this exhibition at Spring Cheltenham, Yardstick Gallery presents 2 ceramicists, Iona Crawford-Topp & John Wheeldon.
Iona Ceramic's ‘Estuary’ collection of tactile mugs and vases. Wheelthrown stoneware with thick porcelain slip and rust inclusions, inspired by the ever changing aerial appearance of estuaries.
John Wheeldon Ceramic's earthenware teapots, teaware and tulipières in exclusive pastel colour glazes – fine ceramics of a domestic nature, handthrown and decorated in the manner of 18th Century english tableware.
Yardstick Gallery presents contemporary craft and fine art handmade by emerging and established artists and makers. www.yardstickgallery.com presents an occasional online focus on individual artists, as well as works for sale. Yardstick Gallery also curates a small number of exhibitions in UK venues.