OPEN STUDIOS TASTER
The Open Studios Taster Exhibition is part of the Colchester and Tendring Open
Studios 2014. Providing a tantalising glimpse of artists and makers working on our
doorstep, the exhibition creates a fictive environment associated with the history of
the Minories Galleries’ building.
Miss Winifred Makepiece-Crosthwaite, best known as Bindy, was the Headmistress
of the County High School for Girls, which was then partly across the road in
Greyfriars. She was a paying lodger during the final years of The Minories as a family
residence, and John Bensusan-Butt (Son of Gregory C. Bensuan-Butt and Dr. Ruth
Bensuan- Butt, the first female doctor in Colchester) even remembered in his book
‘The House that Boggis Built’ how she patiently taught him to read. During her stay at
The Minories, Bindy liaised with some of the artists who frequently visited the
Minories’ garden, and became the owner of several artworks, craft items, and
jewellery.
When she passed away her possessions turned out to be in legal limbo and the
collection has remained at The Minories ever since, even after 1956, when Dr. Ruth,
who retired after 50 years of medical service, decided to sell the outsize mansion to
the Victor Batte-Lay Trust. The Minories Galleries has conserved the picturesque and
unique sum of belongings until now, as recently a distant relative rescued Bindy’s
possessions and decided to put them up for sale.
Part homage, part collaboration, part fiction, and part reality – The Garden Room
becomes a fictive recreation of Miss Winifred’s room as it was, with part of her
collection available to purchase. Paintings, prints, photographs, pottery, fused glass,
silver jewellery and textiles will be on display.
The artists featured in the Open Studios Taster 2014 are: Maurice Blik, Karina
Carrington, Lisa Crockel, Deryck Healey, Carol Hennahane, Caroline Moiret, Robert
Mowle, Vinny Stapley, Nora Stocker, Ruth Philo, Hannah Stageman, Nicky Sheales,
and Richard Whitehouse.
Maurice Blik
During the late 1980s Maurice created a series of horses’ heads. These noble
and benevolent creatures possess energy and life forces that seem just barely
harnessed long enough to take their shape in the clay itself. Later on, he
progressed to more figurative work. He works in the UK and the USA where he
was awarded residency by the US Government as 'a person of extraordinary
artistic ability'.
Oakleigh, 2014
Jesmonite
£1500.00
Aztec, 2014
Bronze
30cm
£6500.00
Karina Carrington
Using traditional casting and mould making techniques, Karina aims to make
tangible the concept of the world on the inside. These mysterious inside spaces
have become a metaphor for the mind and the space that it contains, but that
we are unable to see.
For her, mind and body have a symbiotic relationship, but while the body has
its own physical boundaries, the mind cannot be measured. The depiction of
this intangible space has become the essence of Karina’s work.
The Place Where I Can Still Remember Dreaming, 2013
Cassini plaster, mould making and casting
£2000.00
Lisa Cockrell
Lisa is a photographer, who has always had a love of wildlife and the natural
world. She has a degree in Biology, which has allowed her to combine her two
passions. Lisa's images are inspired by nature.
Camargue Horses, 2013
Photography
£100.00
Burnished Reflections, 2013
Photography
£80.00 Unframed in mount/ £100 Framed - Available at the Minories Shop
Deryck Healey
Deryck was an internationally acclaimed colourist that worked with mixed
media abstracts. He had a successful career attracting audiences in New York,
Osaka, Los Angeles, Venice and London. Acrylic, pen, ink and sand are amongst
the materials that he used to create his canvas and mono prints. For him, art
was the oxygen of life and he communicated his ideas through an on-going
series of ‘visual poems.’ During the 1960s, he also became a successful textile
and print designer. Deryck published several books and worked as Professor of
Colour at London’s Royal College of Art. His work has been extensively
exhibited in numerous international galleries and museums.
Jigsaw Painting, 1998
Acrylic
£400
Upon, 2001
Giclee print
84.5 X 128
£800.00 - Available on Request
Carol Hennahane
Carol Hennahane is a designer/maker using kiln-formed and stained glass.
After gaining her degree at Colchester School of Art and Design she was invited
to The International Glass Centre in the West Midlands for Post Graduate
study.
She uses traditional materials and techniques in a contemporary way to
explore the translucent, reflective and refractive properties of glass. Her work
is derived from the natural world and the fragile environmental boundaries in
which life is sustained. The narrow margins of eco sensitive habitats where
organisms either flourish or are annihilated by the ravages of nature or the
impact of human action are investigated.
She is the Tutor for Stained Glass, Kiln-Formed Glass and Jewellery courses for
Adult Community Learning at the Wilson Marriage Centre and other centres
throughout Essex.
Ripples, 2008
Kiln-formed glass, leaded
NFS commissions taken
Bird Sun catcher, 2014
Painted and leaded glass
£125 - Available at the Minories Shop
Caroline Moiret
Caroline is concerned with the interplay of colour, light and translucency of
glass. She takes her inspiration from natural, organic, modular and iconic
forms. Her work is also often inspired by memories or experiences. She makes
jewellery, dishes, lighting, panels and sculpture, each of which is always a oneoff.
Handkerchief dish (large) Deep pink edges, 2014
Fused and slumped glass
£65.00
Handkerchief dish, blue edges, 2014
Fused and slumped glass
£55.00
Handkerchief dish with Lime green edges and gold highlights, 2014
Fused and slumped glass
£55.00 – Available on request
Robert Mowle
Robert works with various mediums such as painting (landscapes and
portraits), ceramics, and photography.
BM/1 - Naked Raku Vessel, 2014
Burnished with a stone, bisque fired, coated
resist slip then inscribed pattern. Fired again
and smoked to achieve carbon penetration.
Cleaned off and wax polished
£75.00
BM/2 - Earthenware Mug with curly handle,
2014
Earthenware
£15.00 - Available at the Minories Shop
BM/3 - Small Raku cylinder, 2014
Raku
£15.00
BM/4 - Pit fired small sphere with tiny mouth, 2014
Pit Fired
£30.00
BM/5 - Squat Sphere, 2014
Burnished then re-fired and horsehair applied – wax polished
£55.00
BM/6 - Saggar fired sphere with small mouth, 2014
Burnished then re-fired in saggar fumed with ferric chloride and salt – wax
polished
£45.00
BM/7 - Raku vessel—creased, 2014
Turquouise crackle with heavy copper
£65.00
Vinny Stapley
Vinny is an emerging artist working with art textiles but has a wealth of
experience working in commercial textile design, one-off couture, costume
making and education. Her artistic practice combines screen-print,
embroidery, digital print, glass and film installation to produce mixed-media
pieces in various formats.
Vinny’s work is concerned with memories and the visual documentation of
family history. Her work is also increasingly influenced by the muted colours of
the landscapes and seascapes that surround her. She uses found and vintage
materials to develop atmospheric pieces inspired by nostalgic imagery.
Memories are yet Fleeting, 2013
Screen-print, digital print and embroidery – 3D sculpture.
POA
Seaweed cushions, 2014
Screen-print blend - Printed in limited editions so colours may vary
£35.00
On the Roof of the Ritz, 2014
Digital print and embroidery, momento-mori and found materials
£325.00 Framed - Similar pieces can be made to commission using old family
photos
Vintage Rose Oval Panel, 2012
Screen-print and embroidery, antique lace panel
£75.00
Norah Stocker
Norah Stocker is a textile artist and a qualified adult education teacher. Her
business is an approved Micro Centre offering City & Guilds stitched textile
courses at her Coggeshall studio. Her recent works are looking at the Japanese
philosophy of Wabi Sabi and impermanence. She works on experimental
textiles using digital imagery and hand printing techniques with mixed media.
Her studies are of the beauty of the cycle of life and nature through decay.
Norah welcomes commissions, talks and workshops also at other venues.
After the Storm, 2014
Mixed media, painted, printed, dyed papers and fabrics then stitched
£260.00
Paradise Lost II, 2014
Mixed media, imagery fabric prints, dyed, painted, stitched fabrics and papers
£260.00
Ruth Philo
Ruth’s work explores abstract qualities in painting, particularly concerned with
surface, mark and colour, and their power to evoke feeling and memory. The
paintings become a record in themselves, resulting in their own condensed
histories. She is also interested in phenomenology and the idea of seen and
unseen elements together revealing felt experience.
Her working process usually involves a dialogue with the painting process and
the physicality of the medium. She works in oils or acrylics, sometimes in series
often on an intimate scale.
A Temporary Arrangement with the sea 1, 2014
Acrylic and gesso on wooden panel
£375.00
A Temporary Arrangement with the sea 4, 2014
Acrylic and gesso on wooden panel
£375.00
A Temporary Arrangement with the sea 5, 2014
Acrylic and gesso on wooden panel
£375.00
Hannah Stageman
Hannah’s practice deals with the relationship between art and nature, from
botanical drawing to landscape painting, combining drawing, sculpture and
printmaking. She is also interested in drawing’s contemporary concerns, using
it to explore nature, the natural sciences and our past social history.
Hannah’s recent work explores the traditions of the working English forest:
pollarding, coppicing, pannage, shipbuilding, forest administration, and
commoners and their rights. Working with memory, connecting histories and
practices, she draws on the historical aspects of our forests and shows the
dis/similarities to the present.
Trees, how many of them do we need to look at? (Ronald Reagan), 2013
Photographs and paint on paper
£600.00
Untitled (Epping Forest), 2013
White ink on giclée print
48 x 33cm
£75.00 - Available on request
Nicky Sheales
Nicky works creatively with clay to express influences drawn from a variety of
sources, including the wealth of seaside imagery in her surroundings. She also
owes much of her inspiration to folk art, mythology and Middle Eastern art.
These themes have had a profound impact on the direction of her ceramics
particularly her recent sculptural & relief plaque series shown at the Naze
Tower this summer.
Initial ideas are developed through observation or reference to source
material. Drawing is an important part of the process whether from life
studies, museum artefacts or imagination. During the creation of a piece, Nicky
enjoys developing and exploring forms and methods of surface decoration.
Glazes and firing techniques are integral to the design of her ceramics,
whether sculptural or functional.
Flask, 2014
Ceramic, raku fired stoneware
£85.00
Richard Whitehouse
Following formal training at Birmingham, Richard worked at British Silverware
in Birmingham and then for Stuart Devlin in London. During the 1980s, he
started his own workshop, and manufactured jewellery and tableware, and
also a wide range of silverware. This included cruets, bowls, presentation
spoons, jugs, and decanters. Many pieces were hand raised. He has sold his
work to places such as John Lewis, Liberty, Fortnum and Mason, Harrods, and
overseas.
During the 1990s explored new forms of jewellery, applying large sculptural
and abstract forms developed from experiments with wood and soapstone to
jewellery, decanters and boxes. He has also experimented with titanium and
anodized aluminium.
Patterned silver bangle, 2014
Anticlastic raising*, soldering, filing, polishing
£75.00
*Anticlastic Raising is a technique of metal forming whereby sheet metal is formed directly with a hammer on
a sinusoidal (snake-like) stake. A flat sheet of metal is shaped by compressing its edges and stretching the
centre so that the surface develops two curves at right angles to each other .The pattern of the sheet plays a
major role in the form that will be achieved, however, many different forms can often be made from the same
pattern.
Hammered silver bangle, 2014
Cutting, hammering, polishing
£90.00
Silver leaf pendant, 2014
Hammering, filling, polishing, rolling
£110.00
Large silver Citrine ring , 2014
Cutting, filling, polishing, soldering, stone setting
£150.00
Patterned silver pendant, 2014
Silver
£110.00
Silver Ring, 2014
Silver
£75.00
Silver leaf earrings, 2014
Silver
£80.00
Silver ball earrings, 2014
Silver
£120.00