Summer exhibition at Kington gallery features British fine art and craft

A summer exhibition called 'Sunlight on the Garden' has opened at a gallery near Kington.

Old Chapel Gallery in Pembridge is hosting the display of eclectic British fine art and craft.

Returning by popular demand is the featured artist Mary Woodin.

Mary studied at the Royal College of Art in London and immediately after graduation was commissioned to produce ceramic tile murals for South Kensington Underground Station.

Mary has a great eye for detail. She excels when painting natural objects from her garden.

Her beautiful watercolours have been commissioned for many international projects including Country Living magazine. The gallery welcomes her once more with a new collection of watercolours featuring flowers from her lovely garden.

Tamsin Abbott’s stained glass panels are influenced by the natural world and its associated myths and legends.

She tries to imbue her work with a sense of these magical qualities which connect humankind to the landscape while doing justice to the alchemical qualities of the glass itself.

The creative urge turned Rachel Ricketts from the conservation of antiquities and fine art to her studio with the intention of painting, but inspiration to sculpt came along with her newly acquired English Toy Terrier who became her first, very wriggly, subject.

Her extensive training did not encompass sculpture, in this she is entirely self-taught, her experience with materials and techniques, including patination processes, have proved invaluable as Rachel seeks to integrate the visual disciplines she enjoys.

Like many glass artists, Thomas Petit started his craft experience in the world of clay while at still at school and despite his determination to be the next Bernard Leach he was encouraged to try other artistic mediums to broaden his horizons.

Remembering a childhood visit to the Dartington Crystal Factory to watch glass-blowing, he set about searching for small courses and found one with Norman Stuart-Clarke in Cornwall. He was mesmerised by this new and exciting material, and clay was almost completely forgotten about.

Rachel Sumner is a mixed media artist working mainly with found objects such as driftwood and metal. She collects the materials for her pieces during the winter when there are storms and not so many people about, and assembles them during the summer in her shed, hand painting the details and finishing the assemblages with beeswax.

Artist and printmaker Frances St Clair Miller was born and educated in London, and was a student at the Slade School of Fine Art, University College London, from 1965 until 1969.

Her emphasis is on traditional technique and the highest standards in printing, instilled at the Slade and strengthened through experience and which remains constant in her work.

All her work is produced in her own studio in rural Herefordshire using traditional printmaking techniques with subject matter drawn primarily from landscape and architecture. She takes inspiration directly from nature, painting and drawing outdoors to achieve a greater immediacy and naturalism than is possible in purely studio-bound work. She exhibits work nationally and internationally.

Much loved ceramicist Hilke MacIntyre was born in Germany near the Danish border. She studied architecture at the College for Art & Design in Kiel and worked for various architects until she moved to Scotland in1995.

Since then she has focused on printmaking, ceramics and painting, combining a simplified figurative style with bold shapes, strong colours and abstract patterns. Her work is widely exhibited in galleries throughout Britain and her linocuts and woodcuts have been used for numerous illustrations.

The gallery is open from Wednesday to Friday from 11am until 4.30pm, Saturday 11am until 5pm and Sundays 12 noon until 4pm. Mondays and Tuesdays by prior appointment.

If you can’t make it to the gallery visit the website.

For more information phone 01544 388 842 or email [email protected] or visit our web site www.oldchapelgallery.co.uk