Art Exhibition – Connections

This year’s Stroud Arts Festival Art Exhibition is curated by Lansdown Gallery Curator, Jessy Plant. The week-long show brings us a ‘variety biscuit box’ (to quote Jessy) of visual artists’ and their perspective on Connections between people and places, music, movement, stories, maps and the landscape.  In this exhibition some of these artists know each other, others are only connected through their artistic themes, but with all those connections in mind, these very different artists are presenting their perspective on Connections – a mixture of hopeful, playful, despairing, fragile, reflective and so much more. 

Exhibiting Artists

Jim Pilston – An illustrator whose work has become three-dimensional. Working in mixed media, from local found materials that are re-purposed and recycled, he explores folklore and legend..  

Hannah Dyson – An illustrator who finds inspiration in the steep valleys,high flat plains and ancient woodlands of the local landscape where she is an artist in residence at Prema, Uley

Chris James – An artist with a passion for painting en plein air, capturing local scenes – landscape, buildings and people 

Patricia Goode – Patricia (or Tigga as she is generally known) is a painter, singer and a poet., Her work is eclectic, with some paintings and murals commissioned for their calming colours and healing effect in treatment rooms and private homes. 

Emily Joy – a socially engaged artist making sculpture, installation and performative work, and facilitator of public creative projects. Landscape, destruction, fragility

Gemma Pitman – Nature,Ink, Maps! With her inspiration firmly rooted in nature Gemma paints with inks, metallic mediums and acrylics, creating art with a contemporary interpretation on places that people find connection with

Mark Stopforth – Landscape artist capturing the vast immersive spaces of moorland and river estuary, evoked through charcoal, pencil and oil.

Alison Cockcroft – An artist whose practice encompasses drawing, sculpture and participatory creative events for communities. Landscape, nature, nests, building, care, protection, fragility

Ruth Hickson – Maps provide a simple connection between people and places, allowing us to discover our surroundings, helping us to place ourselves in the environment. Ruth tells the story of people, places, routes, and events, using colourful and fun imagery which is created using a combination of drawing, printmaking and digital techniques.

Imogen Harvey – Lewis – Human, mental health, connections, conversations.  Imogen is an illustrator who calls herself a ‘drawaholic’. She draws each day, has a favourite pencil and draws for pleasure, work and ‘situation sorting’. Her work focuses around the human condition, each drawing pretty much a self-portrait of the everyman, feeling their feelings, expressing their emotions, being real.

Cheryl Perrett – Human, gestural, linking movement and visual expression, constantly exploring, and making a response. With different approaches, Cheryl explores expressive movement- inspired abstract canvases and pastels; large scale gestural paintings with female figures as the subject, and detailed precise small technique orientated works .