BREAKOUT

This exhibition brings together 7 artists sharing their experiences of the last year: glimpsed, slipping, focussed and filtered through paint. What could have been a time of suspended motion is for these artists: Kate Burnett, Patrice Collins, Jenny Gorna, Jane Hughes, Annabel Karim Kassar, Miranda Townsend and Farzi Yousefi; a breakout, for reflection and a supercharge for making life changes.

Literally meeting in ‘breakout’ rooms to communicate, exchange ideas and support; the works reflect conversations of enclosure, escapism, nostalgia and a processing of past and present. This virtual enclosure invites, ‘touching visually’, artworks that embrace colour, the surreal, gestural expressiveness, and memory.

KATE BURNETT

Kates’ work explores the unknown and intangible and these paintings capture the constant shift and ever-changing nature of impermanence. The paintings themselves are built up in complex layers each exploring uncertainty and the physicality of the moment, weaving between process and emotion, each layer a document to the history of time.

PATRICE COLLINS

Artist Statement

Responding intuitively using watercolour and mixed media, I paint to connect to my inner-self. These paintings explore actual spaces and the feeling of being suspended in an in-between, liminal place, like a corridor to many possibilities. Much like a meditation, my practice is influenced by the unfolding of life’s journey, the creative process gradually revealing unconscious parts waiting to be discovered. I first engage my mind conceptually with research before merging viscerally with the ‘flow’ state. I feel this is a powerful healing method to reclaim parts of the self and open to a deeper wisdom

JENNY GORNA

Artist Statement 

SIXES - A series of postcard sized works. I started to work small when we couldn't meet in person any more, this could be my response to a world that had shrunk.  I work intuitively, as on a production line, adding and editing until a coherent thread seems to be uniting each group.

JANE HUGHES

Artist Statement

Paradox of Permanence - In childhood our family photographs were kept hidden, forbidden and out of reach. Through painting I have used these to explore image as power and the illusionary and corruptibility of encapsulated moments. While they deal with the raw footage of my childhood, the intentional ambiguity of detail slices through the inherent nostalgia of memory.

ANNABEL KARIM KASSAR

Artist Statement

In my work I am investigating the off balanced and imbalanced states that one could always reach when painting or drawing. I like to explore and experiment. During lockdown I started to use all kinds of photos and photocopies at different stages of my work and re-worked them as part of the final process. I also use palette paper, mixing colours, directly on my canvas using acrylic painting, soft pastel and ink.
The palette paper is a second skin and it becomes part of the painting.

MIRANDA TOWNSEND

Artist statement

My paintings develop from glimpses and fragile memories of the colours, forms and ever changing light that I see in the natural world. The search for new ways to record these goes on.  I want to move forward and long to walk freely again in a world without fear.

FARZANEH YOUSEFI

 Artist Statement

My paintings are about Identity. Working from my imagination and memories, I paint those family members still in my country,  I miss them during this difficult time. I see them in my dreams and recall images of my culture, such as the carpet repairer and reflect  on the distance between us as well as the shared experiences that bind us together. I work in oil on paper and canvas.

What I am seeking in the real in my life ,it is very important to express oneself feeling and from the ambition is excessive.

When you see this profiles ,you can see some profiles .
They  thinking.
In real life we thinking far away

I let myself go.
It thought little of the worlds and trees ,but I applied black and white colour on the paper .It doesn’t matter how the paint is put in as long as something is said ,so when I’m painting I’m not aware of what I’m doing.