ENNEAD 2024
Summer Art Exhibition
19th - 24th July 2024
Sarah Axford
These paintings are based on drawings and watercolour studies made when out and about with my sketchbooks, while walking or cycling by lochs, ponds, burns and the River Tay which passes close to my home in Perthshire; also when sailing our small boat, exploring bays, harbours, islands and inlets on the river Forth. The patterned reflections of the trees, skies, the moon, clouds and light on the surface of still or moving water and the marks left on the sand by the outgoing tides, are an endless source of fascination. Where there is water, I often see birds too and I have started to include them in my work. In my paintings I have tried to recapture some of the mood of the places I have drawn in, and the experience of being there.
Maria Burton
Skies full of energy, at times move into serenity and embrace all beneath. Fell sides become rich with intense colour then fade naturally to naturally merging shadows. Wind sweeps across ridges and waters and ever changing light moves and cascades, carving memories into hearts and minds.
Fell walking and open water swimming have become integral to Marias connection with nature, place and self. Alongside her continued development of dramatic, atmospheric landscapes, Maria will be working on her second major body of work in relation to water – “Portrait of Water”.
Adding an abstract language to her brushwork, accompanied by writing and observation, these paintings hold expression of all threads and each thread of experience, including as Nan Shepherd writes “The Annihilation of Self”.
Nature loans its beauty just enough for me to hold a little of it temporarily. This I do through swimming, fell walks, sketching, an occasional photograph for back up and then mostly memory playing with paint on canvas. My work is not of a place – it is about the place, the sense of it, and the connection with the intricacies and essence of nature and the moments in time.
Maria Burton has won a number of ‘People’s Choice’ awards and has been part of exhibitions in Cumbria, Lancashire and Edinburgh. She has studied under Martin Kinnear, at the Norfolk Painting School, Jane Couroussopoulos at The Leith School of Art, The Scottish School of Classical Art, and online with Evolve Art Education.
Mandy Charters
I was initially inspired by a collection of objects belonging to my late Father. After draw-ing them for an art project I felt the soda siphon had a human-like quality, standing on guard over the other objects. Having been partial to the odd cocktail it was an easy deci-sion to team him up with different ingredients and cocktail making paraphernalia.
John Colles
My interest is in narrative; the way in which a painting can ask for your attention and make you wonder why. In the case of doors, for example, do the thoughts that cross one’s mind include what is behind the painted surface?
Jackie Forbes
I am particularly drawn to pattern and colour and enjoy portrait and still life painting, finding creative ways to include vibrancy. My inspiration can come from the patterns and design of my clothes. Some of my clothes and shoes are immortalized in my work.
I like to work in a variety of media including collage, water colour, acrylic and oils.
Over the past ten years I have attended several courses at Leith School of Art, Edinburgh Drawing School and various summer schools.
My latest exploration is into landscape painting, and I look forward to developing my style in this genre.
Shelley Jupitus
This year my work has been based on a poem called Mushrooms by Sylvia Plath. It is a deeply metaphorical poem that uses mushrooms as a symbol for women and their struggle for equal rights after the second world war. Their vital contribution to the war effort was ignored and they were expected to give up their newfound freedoms. Plath uses the line “Perfectly voiceless, Widen the crannies, Shoulder through holes” to show that in their own quiet and gentle way, women continued slowly to assert their influence on the postwar western world. I decided to represent the mushrooms shadowy existence by making my own mushrooms dark and tenebrous in nature. These mushrooms represent a time after the poem, beyond “Our foot is in the door,” when they have become powerful and strong, pushing through, occupying space, demanding a place in the world.
Laura Mackenzie
Having practiced as a landscape architect all my professional life, I now enjoy approaching the landscape in two dimensions, trying to catch some of the nuance of light, form and atmosphere.
Sketching is the starting point for my work, in pencil, charcoal, and sometimes watercolour. I then develop the image in the studio in oils.
Drawing outside focusses your view and imprints an image in your mind. It will be memorable in a way that a photograph never is, although photos can be useful. Painting is to do with interpretation of that image.
Mary Stewart
The artist’s task, according to the sculptor Tony Cragg, is to find out what you have to make. I’m still working on that……
I am fascinated by the creative process of capturing words and thoughts which happen at the edges of making, while exploring the images found within ink, collage and pastel marks.
Muriel Young
I have been enjoying developing work using objects that have lots of memories for me, usually simple things that we use as a family or when with friends. Others remind me of my mother and grandmother and more distant memories.
As well as the memories they evoke I enjoy using these objects in simple still life, often playing with reflections light and colour.
A small move of a light source can have a big impact on the colours or shadows.
Using a convex flask the resulting reflections are unexpected and it is exciting to try and capture them. A simple mug is white, but there are so many colours in white. The longer you look at a still life the more you see.
It is a never ending exploration.
Venue
The Dundas Street Gallery
6 Dundas St
Edinburgh
EH3 6HZ