Affordable Art comes to Ballard School, New Milton
Friday 3rd July 12noon - 8.00
Saturday 4th July 9.00 - 12.30 2009

Baxter Bradford spends inordinate and often unsociable hours in this wonderfully image rich environment. Here he observes the conditions and carefully crafts his compositions to create his unique images. Baxter’s photographs are principally made on the Jurassic Coast of Dorset, West Cornwall, The Solent, Isle of Wight and New Forest.

His images are made with a 5x4 Large Format camera in both Colour and Black and White. They depict the beauty, power and moods of our Coast and Countryside.

Baxter experiences an innate desire to create photographic images in an outdoors environment. He works in sympathy with both the landscape and the elements. He possesses a genuine affinity with water and the sea in particular. Baxter actively seeks to be on a beach or cliff to attempt to encapsulate scenes of wonderment. His aspirations are that, at its best, his work has a strong initial impact but also offers lasting fulfillment as its more subtle qualities are revealed to the viewer over time…… Baxter would dearly love an easy life, with the beach as his office - Coasting, in every sense!

Sue Davies has been a professional artist since graduating from the Central School of Art in London. After a 10 year period as a teacher, she left her Head of Art position in Harrow to run a design and mural painting business in Hertfordshire for 16 years. On selling the business she moved to Falmouth where she now lives and works.

With many years experience of painting and drawing her personal exploration has brought her to non-representational work. Always being aware of many thoughts and feelings running through her head at the same time. She feels the abstract approach has more power for her, it allows many images to jostle together and create something new. Something which is not so formalised and literal that it stops ones imagination growing.

As with any image it has to start somewhere and since arriving in Cornwall she has taken up kayaking. The kayak allows her to slip silently though the silken waters. Moving low in the water gives a new dimension and sometimes makes the whole world seem to be slipping and sliding. Always aware of light, shade, time and sound, the images of these journeys have added to and informed her latest works.

Catherine Harvey Jefferson is a third generation painter from the Harvey family and studied at Falmouth and Winchester Schools of Art. Her childhood and formative years were spent sailing the Cornish, Breton and Irish coasts with her family and her links with the sea go back generations. Some of the most memorable journeys of her childhood were travelling out to the Isles of Scilly from Newlyn harbour and spying the granite castles and caves from off shore.

Moving back to Cornwall permanently after living away for years has led to this body of work from the last six months. It is taken from spending most of the time working on drawings and paintings out on the cliffs and the excitement and energy that comes from being in the landscape, quiet for long periods of time.

Although Alison Read chose printmaking as her medium when studying fine art at Newcastle University, her final show was sculpture and photography. And when she was subsequently chosen to exhibit in the RCA and was commissioned by Lord Rothschild to make a life-size bronze sculpture of five gnashing, running dogs, it looked like her career might have gone down different route. But despite this success she abandoned sculpture and returned to printmaking, running the Printmaking Workshop at Lincoln University for the next 9 years. At Lincoln, Alison completed her MA degree, learnt a lot about practical printmaking and began exhibiting her own work. This led to her going it alone as a commercial artist printmaker three years ago and this how she now makes her living.

Alison is now a full-time printmaker, exhibiting in her own gallery and in a number of other venues scattered across the country. She feels that she is jest at the beginning of a career path that is full of interest and promise. Many of her fans will agree with her.

Mark Spray was born in Derbyshire and moved to West Cornwall in 2000. He was a student at Manchester Metropolitan University (1992-95) and Goldsmiths College, London (1998-99). He is now a dedicated artist living and working in the St. Just area. Mark is every inch the project man. No random paintings or drawings from him. Each piece of work is part of a ell thought out and thoroughly researched project. He has almost completed over 40 paintings and drawings of Dartmoor Tors, linked to the legend of Prometheus and is working on a study of the landscapes that influenced D.H.Lawrence in Derbyshire and West Cornwall.

Michael Strang: In a remarkable career that has produced literally thousands of oil paintings and drawings, Michael has embraced countless subjects within the spectrum of landscapes - natural and man-made, seascapes, floral arrangements, flowering fields and hedgerows, still-life and portraits.

At the latest count, his work has been shown in over 90 public and private galleries and museums, a total that includes the Tate St Ives, the Royal Academy, galleries in London’s Bond Street, Cork Street and Albermarle Street and, famously, The Gallery at Virginia Water.

As well as in private collections all over the world, Michael Strang paintings may be found in notable public collections, including Penlee House, Penzance; Falmouth Art Gallery; Cornwall County Council; St Martin’s in the Fields, London; and Surrey University. And he has donated many works to help raise funds for a range of charities and restoration funds.

Michael is a passionate and energetic painter for whom no day is complete without the application of paint to canvas or panel. He shares his time between West Cornwall, Surrey and Wales.

The following 3 works were originally in the Tate Gallery St Ives “Century of images, Porthmeor Beach” exhibition April - October 1995 along with over 50 of Michael’s other Porthmeor paintings.

Carrie Taylor studied at Harrogate College of Art and Bradford Art College and was also taught by Jean Georges Simon, a French artist who became a major influence on her work. Simon was a close friend of Bourdelle and Modigliani when he lived and worked in Paris. Carrie lives in St Just-in-Penwith, near land’s End, Cornwall where her lifelong fascination with natural history is blended in her paintings with her observations of hedgerows, moorland, water and rocks throughout the seasons.