Upstairs at The Art Shop, Cross Street

PAINTINGS, DRAWINGS, PRINTMAKING & CERAMICS

ANN JOHNSON – Ann has worked with poets, printers and textile artists and her art has appeared in books, magazines and galleries around the country. Several of her paintings have been hung at Royal Academy Summer Exhibitions. From a background in journalism and animal advocacy Ann has discovered new ways of articulating a love of words, of drawing and painting and the natural world. She never includes human figures in her work saying, ‘I prefer to simply suggest evidence of human habitation. Abandoned garden forks, bits of trellis and buildings in stages of disintegration contribute not only exciting and contrasting marks to a composition, these also project mysteries and stories of the past inhabitants.’

Wild Margins, Drawings and Inspirations was published in 2016. In 2024, Wild Margins 2, After the Storm (WM2), a signed limited edition of 200 copies, was produced. WM2 focuses on the River Wye the challenges faced by our waterways. Both titles are available to buy at The Art Shop during the exhibition.

SOPHIE WAKE – Sophie graduated from Brighton University, with a BA Hons in Graphic Design / Illustration and worked for many years as a busy commercial illustrator. Today, her Fine Art practice responds to the rhythms of meditation and ancient tree tea ceremony which has become a fundamental companion to her creative approach. ‘My artwork is suffused with my spiritual practice. Influences of shamanism, rock art, ancient clay models and pottery are channeled throughout the collections, celebrating the power of raw basic human emotion in simple and authentic forms. Working with oil on canvas or gouache on paper, imbuing a liminal quality, and a sense of in-betweenness my process dwells in intangible wordlessness.’

In 2018 Sophie’s painting HERD was selected by Grayson Perry for the Royal Academy’s 250th Summer Exhibition, where it appeared in his hand-curated Yellow Room. Winner Best Artists Open House in 2019, Best Newcomer in 2018 and nominated for three other AOH Brighton Artists Open Houses.

FLORA  MCLACHLAN – ‘I work intuitively and without an end in sight. This series of paintings was begun looking out of my studio window up a bank covered in vegetation growing so luxuriantly that it was pressing against the glass. I had no view so I started instinctively looking into the mass of growth to find small ways in to some kind of distance. White bindweed flowers appeared like the moon, a tangle of brambles like some ancient thorny fairytale forest. Small gaps between trees seemed to signal the way to follow to the end of the quest. The way things grow in a rush towards the light seems to me to echo the shape of our lives; a quest towards what needs to happen, an unfolding of the story.’

Flora is a lecturer in Fine Art at Aberystwyth University. She is an alumnus of the Turps Correspondence Course in painting (2020-21).

ANIA PERKOWSKA – Ania is a London based ceramic artist. She creates functional pieces inspired by contrasts and opposites. Growing up as a child in communist Poland, Ania’s life was underpinned by stark grey concrete structures. Her work draws from the rawness, seeking beauty in simplicity of the form, tactility of the texture. She explores how limitations can inspire and release creativity, as well as the tension between surface and form, between the ordered and the organic. She uses geometric forms, minimalistic decoration and natural qualities of the materials, pushing the clay to its limits. From a distance, Ania’s work can appear quiet. It is only when one gets closer, when one touches and holds her pieces that they get to see the detail, feel the texture, experience the surfaces. Above all, she aspires to capture a sense of joy in handling of objects and transforming them into everyday art.

Ania is a member of Contemporary Applied Arts, Design Nation and Craft Potters Association.

THE SIMPLE AND AFFORDABLE WAY TO BUY ART – Interest free credit on all original artwork over £100. Ask us for more details or click the link above.