I work in mixed media with a focus on natural objects and landscape. I enjoy the hidden corners, hedgerows and unfamiliar views. Currently I am making a series of intricate paintings inspired by a collection of sea shells. I am studying for a BA in painting with the OCA.
Featured Member
Bill Jackson
“When the lights go out And the darkness surrounds you Open your eyes
to the Wonderment”
Bill Jackson is a multi award winning photographer, filmmaker and sound artist. The concept of time is crucial to his ideas, exchanging the classic definition of photography as a series of instant glimpses of the world in which we live, to a personal definition of ‘space-time’.
A conceptualist arts education in the early 70’s at Coventry School Of Art continues to inform my thinking and work practice. Drawing or mark making in its widest interpretation is integral to his work. The mark, either as an engineering drawing or a mathematical notation, is the beginning of the journey to new ideas.
As a young art student, he was influenced by Pollock’s approach to random mark making and the artist’s’ intervention in that process. He creates stages for these interventions to unfold; with the knowledge of these stages in daylight, the ‘performance’ is transformed by night.
As a nocturnal photographer and filmmaker, he works with specially constructed drawing tools in the darkness of night to engage with natural elements including the sea and the wind to map out spaces and environments, tapping into the natural energies to trace and draw, and document unique, live, site specific performances. The reality of the captured image is fundamental to all his work, particularly with long exposure photography.
In 1986 he transitioned from photography and ventured into cyberspace, initially experimenting with early digital formats, combining them with analogue photography. Through this period major electronic mapping works included ‘Iconoclast’ and ‘The Journey of The Skin Man’. These were later used to illustrate the current concerns about photography at a symposium at The National Museum of Photography, Film and Television in 1991.
Jane Human
I am a Suffolk based painter and printmaker. I exhibit widely in the UK and my work is held in public, corporate and private collections worldwide.
My origins are in the Fens, the wider East Anglian landscape means a great deal to me in terms of space, the horizon and also sky/water/land relationships.
In all its shifting, beguiling and quiet forms this is my most powerful inspiration.
My work is characterised by a strong sense of place, a fine balance of abstraction and representation, by exploration of colour, vibrant mark making, texture and rhythm.
Inspiration comes from direct and repeated observation of the landscape; both intimate and distant, then mediated through complex layering techniques in the studio using a 1940’s offset litho press. It is in the spirit of quiet contemplation.
I hope this spirit will infiltrate the final pieces and create space and places to be lingered within and slowly journeyed through.
Further examples of my work can be viewed on my website at: www.janehuman.co.uk
Nicci Dedman
My creations derive from a fascination with wire and the forms that can be achieved using wire alone.
The inspiration for my work has been the floral and animal subjects I can view from my garden and local neighbourhood based on the Norfolk/Suffolk border.
Photographs are taken, studies are made and final drawings with scribbles allow me to then create each sculpture individually by hand. I like to show movement in the wildlife subjects and attention to detail is given to the floral subjects anatomy.
More examples of my work can be seen at www.niccidedman.co.uk
Helen Derbyshire
My work is about is about the textures and mood of the landscape around me – focusing sometimes on the details of vegetation and sometimes on evoking a sense of the season, of space, light and weather.
I draw and use digital photography, almost always in combination with experimental textile and mixed media approaches.
I work in series – responding to particular places, often the beautiful Waveney Valley landscape local to me, and exploring the possibilities of new techniques.
Kay Barker
I try to communicate a sense of atmosphere by capturing the motion of the sea, the tranquility of the land, and the texture of the rocks.
I let my work develop and take over from my initial direct reaction.
The elements of the environment are not only beautiful, calm but vast, complex and dangerous. This relationship between fear and tranquility are emotions I can identify with.
Engaging with nature has helped me to overcome my recent surgery to remove a brain tumour. I admire and appreciate more so now the beauty found in an individual leaf or a spectacular view.
Maria Clarke-Wilson
A mixed media and natural resources artist creating a selection of contact botanical prints and paintings using the plants gathered from around Suffolk.
The art work is a calm and gentle visual experience that allows the natural marks and colours from nature to connect you to the natural world.
Finding sanctuary in nature and seeking deeper connections with the landscape, I have immersed myself in researching and discovering the potential of natural colours and prints from my environment. Following a path that led to completing an MA at NUA I have continued to work exploring my locality through mindful practice.
Each print or painting is a result of a unique process, from gathering materials on long walks, to preparing the fabrics, dye baths and paints. Embracing the serendipity of creating this way allows for the materials to become their own part of the collaboration. I am able to guide the process but ultimately the outcomes are unknown until they are revealed. Each leaf, fabric or colour used has a journey attached to it, to create with these natural resources adds a deeper connection to the art.
Making my own paint brushes and paints, or using some recycled fabrics, feels different to painting with shop bought brushes and canvases. Seeking the beauty in natural resources and awakening ancient practices in our contemporary world is the way I feel drawn to express my art and my love for nature.
Surinder Warboys – Myglassroom
I am a Suffolk based artist working in architectural stained glass: light and colour are my medium.
Most of my work is commission based for secular and non-secular buildings. In some commissions, in agreement with the client, I enjoy taking an experimental approach to painting on glass, allowing for an element of surprise and discovery.
I also offer stained glass courses at my studio – Myglassroom in Mellis. There is a personal element running through my work, that is not commission based, in which themes of environment are explored and completed pieces can be displayed in numerous ways and places.
World Land Trust
World Land Trust (WLT) is an international conservation charity that protects the world’s most biologically significant and threatened habitats acre by acre. Through a network of partner organisations around the world, WLT funds the creation of reserves and provides permanent protection for habitats and wildlife. Partnerships are developed with established and highly respected local organisations who engage support and commitment among the local community.
Susan Debnam
I am a Suffolk based artist inspired by low roofed black barns, peeling boats, mud and reed beds.
I paint primarily in acrylic and watercolour and take an an abstract approach to landscape and still life.
A career in organisational change taught me a lot about balancing chaos with order. Now enjoying how that plays out on the canvas.