This new exhibition here in The Atrium at Low Wood Bay, is a celebration of still life paintings by two painters from Cumbria, Tina Balmer and Rebecca Scott.
Still Life – A Celebration
27th April - 31st July 2024
Tina Balmer
Tina Balmer lives and works in Ulverston. She graduated from St Martin’s School of Art in London in 1983, where she studied Fashion Design. She has been exhibiting paintings since 1998 and has had solo exhibitions at Brantwood near Coniston and the Brewery Arts Centre, Kendal.
Tina has organised various art trails and exhibitions in the north of England, including Printfest and Artfest North.
The subject matter for Tina’s paintings are everyday objects, representing the rituals of daily life such as vases, jugs, teapots and flowers. Tina calls her paintings ‘a celebration of the domestic and the ordinary’.
"Although figurative, I’m not concerned with getting an absolute likeness, but with the painting itself; the paint, marks, colour, canvas"
Rebecca Scott
Rebecca Scott, whose work is in private and public collections nationally and internationally, currently lives and works between London and Cumbria, and is Co- Founder of Cross Lane Projects, an independent art space in Kendal.
Rebecca studied Fine Art at Chelsea School of Art, and gained an MA in Fine Art from Goldsmiths, University of London. She has exhibited in London, Cumbria, Spain, France, Germany, Sweden, and Norway.
"I tend to work in series, and retrospectively can see a biographical aspect to my oeuvre; the topics I chose to respond to, have often been meaningful in a personal sense, playing out in reaction to the situations I have found myself in"
Throughout the history of art there are many examples of artists who have incorporated objects from daily life, flowers, fruit, books, to convey through inanimate objects, information about the subject matter of the painting or the individual in a portrait. In the twentieth century for a number of artists including
Picasso, and the Italian artist Morandi still life painting was a major aspect of their work.
"In this exhibition are two contemporary artists from Cumbria, creating still life paintings as a means of expression, from Tina Balmer’s exuberant and colourful flower arrangements to the carefully observed studies of Rebecca Scott"
Still Life – A Celebration
Still Life – A Celebration takes place in The Atrium, Low Wood Bay Resort & Spa, Windermere from Saturday 27 April to 31 July 2024 Artworks are for sale.
Upcoming Exhibition
Jonquil Cook Ceramics
Jonquil Cook produces highly decorative ceramic pieces from TAM studios in Woolwich Dockyard, south London.
Working with high fired stoneware clay and using custom made slips and glazes, Jonquil throws and hand-builds a range of items including vases, platters and tile panels, always with the dual aims of functionality and beauty.
Surface decoration is hand-carved, freehand, with detailed sgraffito, a method adapted from relief printmaking techniques. Each piece is entirely handmade and unique: no moulds or templates are used. The time and cost of making depends on the size of the finished piece and the complexity of the decoration. Recurrent themes appearing on the relief surface of her work, such as swimming koi carp and the natural forms of wild flowers and grasses, have been developed over years of observation of the local natural environment.
All of Jonquil’s ceramics are fired twice in the kiln, first to just under 1000 degrees centigrade, and then, once glazed, to 1260 degrees. This second firing makes the product extremely strong and non-porous. Jonquil’s signature style and method has been developed over two decades, during which a series of apprenticeships and studio residencies have led her from the snowy woods of north America to rural Burgundy in France.
Jonquil’s work has found homes across the globe, including recent large scale tile mural installations in the US and UK.
Image: Jonquil Cook.
Copyright the artist. https://www.jonquilcook.com/
"The Lake District landscape has been a huge influence on my artistic development since childhood, and has nurtured my passion for hiking and climbing. And the opportunity to exhibit at Low Wood Bay is poignant and nostalgic as my mum was one of the first chamber maids at the hotel in the 1950s/60s when there was just a skeleton staff of eight."