The Exhibitors at Oxfordshire Artweeks 2022

Miranda Markham

 I discovered the joy of painting only 8 years ago but have always loved drawing. I mainly paint in oil these days but it was watercolour that got me started. I paint every week if not every day as it really is a passion. I enjoy pretty much all subjects including portraiture and have had the privilege of painting commissions, one of which is hanging in our Town Hall. Aside painting people with interesting faces, I live in the countryside and it is a constant source of information. I have an ongoing battle of joy and pain painting roses, hydrangeas, peonies and any blowsy flowers as I find the tones and shadows captivating. One day i would like to paint like the “Master” of roses, Dennis Perrin, who sadly recently passed away. His paintings will live on and continue to bring pleasure as they are truly magnificent.

My paintings this year are mainly still life focusing on colour and texture. After 8 years of painting I am enjoying the freedom of oil paint but i still love to go back to the spontaneity of watercolour and still love this when I am travelling .
I am enjoying the abstract shapes and drama of our beautiful British skies and hope to do many more of these ahead of the physical exhibition.

Telephone 07768 404529

Graham Perryman

Photography has been a hobby for Graham from the dawn of the digital camera. He has progressed from a 1 megapixel camera in the early days to now using some of the best Canon equipment. Graham's background in horticulture has led him to appreciate and photograph plants, landscapes and wildlife. Using creative techniques to create bokeh that set off the main subject.

Graham is a professional picture framer and founder of Dragonfly Framing in Bicester. Alongside his framing he is a very keen photographer of the natural world and spends much of his free time visiting the UK countryside and capturing its beauty. As well as exhibiting and selling his own work Graham has founded Bicester Art Network where he promotes artists of all ages and abilities. Together with Miranda Markham they organise a series of pop up art galleries across the county whether as part of the town centre regeneration or simply to bring together events such as Artist In the Countryside. Graham is the Bicester Coordinator for Oxfordshire Art Weeks which brings together artists from the Bicester area and will be held for 3 weeks in the Town’s Sheep Street.

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Website: https://dragonflyframing.co.uk 

Tel: 07889 971629

Isobel Rymer

 I studied art at school but only seriously took it up 12 years ago when I joined the mixed media class at Buckingham Art School. My art teachers were a great inspiration to me and pushed me to do try things I would never have done on my own. A lot of my early works were based around my family and home life but art school made be branch out further. Two years ago I started painting on slate coasters, in watercolour and then varnished them to make them water proof, these have been hugely popular! I have also painted on slate tapas and cheeseboards. 

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Website: https://www.ic-art.co.uk

Tel: 07834 042516

Barry Miller

However, it wasn’t easy finding work out in the real world and I took on a succession of jobs, ending up in the working for the past 24 years in the EPOS/IT industry. However, the art bug never went away and, about eight years ago, I started to draw again as a form of relaxation. I played around with a variety of styles and media before discovering pastels. I adore the pastel medium and love seeing how far I can push the chalks by experimenting with techniques, unusual papers and boards and different grades of hard/softness. I don’t particularly focus on any one subject but portraits and form do seem to bring out the best in me.

www.barrymiller.co.uk

Celine Beaugrand - Arty Kiddy

Since starting exhibiting and selling her art in 2018, Céline has been using a variety of mediums including mixed medium: acrylic/collage, watercolour but during lockdown, she has discovered digital technology which she has been using extensively since. She is self-taught and loves experimenting; her approach to art is simple: “give it a try and see where it takes you”. This transpires in her latest pieces which could not be any further from where she started: art for children versus landscapes/Still Life and sometimes dramatic sceneries.
She works mainly from photographs when creating landscapes and seascapes and enjoys working on details and shades. Céline still creates art for children which comes from her imagination where she uses vibrant colours and dreamy sceneries.
Céline is French and has been living in Oxfordshire for 30 years.

www.artykiddy.com - Bicester, M: 07866 022680

Alan Bickley

Christopher Nealie

Christopher Nealie's artistic practice investigates the aesthetics and phenomenology of sacred spaces, particularly his own experience of Western Christianity. He is interested in the interior and exterior architecture of churches and cathedrals, and the way that light is used both functionally to illuminate the space, and to convey a sense of the holy or sacred. His work is especially concerned with the conflict between the solidity and permanence of traditional sacred spaces, and the need for flexible structures in the globalised world, where people constantly travel from place to place.

Nealie's influences range from the Jewish Tabernacle, 19th century “Tin Tabernacles”, or flatpack churches, to IKEA products and Dan Flavin’s works with fluorescent light. He is interested in the making process, and how the role of the artisan or craftsman can interact with contemporary techniques and technologies of making.

Alexandra Buckle

For Alexandra Buckle, inspiration comes from countryside walks and more recently, from a trip to Japan. She captures the light, shadow and colour of her favourite scenery as hand printed reduction linocuts. This relief printing technique involves cutting and printing several layers of colour from the same block of lino in order to build up an image. Mistakes cannot be rectified and the block is destroyed in the process.

Alexandra has been making prints since 2012, creating a simple studio at her home in Bicester to enable her to develop skills to the highest standards. Alexandra has recently been exploring how painting can fit into her printmaking practise.

Alexandra is a best seller on the Artfinder website, selling over 700 works internationally in six years. Her linocuts have been hung in the Royal Academy, the Bankside Gallery and the Mall Galleries in London.

Casimira Mostyn

Barbara Emery

Vivien Seiber

Beth Grace Johnson

Cathy Read

Contemporary artist Cathy Read draws with masking fluid, creating vibrant metropolitan perspectives that reflect city life in all its glory.
Cathy Read re-imagines iconic architecture using explosive, colourful drops and trails of paint, held together with a structure of white lines. Inspired by looming and dramatic architecture. She draws on influences from various cities in the UK. In a previous life she worked as an Occupational Therapist using large art projects to help develop manual skills in children.

Cathy is self-taught. Her earlier paintings were predominantly circle based abstracts. Later developing into urban landscapes, fuelled by a lifelong interest in buildings. A natural evolution after a childhood dominated by giant decaying mills in the North of England's Cotton industry
Cathy exhibits her paintings around the UK, and Europe, and is in collections as far afield as Canada, Africa and New Zealand. Her painting of St Catherine's College Quad is in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. The piece was commissioned by Oxford University Press, to illustrate the 2016 Oxford Almanack.
Cathy Read is a member of the Society of Women Artists exhibiting with them in London since 2013, receiving the Barbara Tate Memorial Award in 2015. Cathy has also shown with the Royal Watercolour Society and the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolour in London. In 2021 she is participating in an International Exhibition at Chiba City Art Museum in Japan.

Mavis Pentz

Arthur Moore

Thomas Shepherd

Andrew Southwick

Victoria Stanway

Victoria Stanway became a professional artist in 2008 to meet demand for her paintings. Working from her studio in Oxfordshire her practice has focused predominantly on the landscape in various forms and methods. Her first series of work entitled 'Landscapes of the Mind'. are inspired by a combination of fading memories, and dreams, often citing references from her past, conjuring mindscapes that are thought provoking and emotive.

Victoria comments on her motivation for this first series.

"I grew up in a dying milltown in east Lancashire, which consisted of rows and rows of back to back terraces, redundant textile mills, and factories all crammed in together in a chaotic fashion, but it was surrounded by luminous countryside which I would escape to. These paintings are often fragmented, contrasting and blurring the references, reflecting my feelings towards them.

You can sometimes see reoccurring symbols in the paintings, such as buildings and windows, often with strange characters I remember from my youth lurking in the shadows. The terraced houses represent oppressive, claustrophobic, restricting memories, of feeling stifled and hemmed in as a child. I take these ideas further in some paintings, constructing narratives which have had a cathartic impact on my practice"

Vivien Sieber

I started pottery when I found myself without a day-job about six years ago and it has become increasingly compulsive. I have been lucky to have good, patient teachers: Ros Collett, Jane Hanson and Graham Hudson and have been on a couple of specialist porcelain throwing courses with Sylph Baier and at Kigbeare.

I initially trained as a biologist, working in plant sciences, which means that I ask lots of questions and enjoy the technical side of ceramics. After a career in genetics, bioscience research, teaching and e-learning development I have time to learn to make pots.
I live in Oxford, UK with my husband and dogs. I'm lucky enough to have a small studio at the bottom of the garden. My pots are made to brighten a

I love working with individuals to create what they want so please do get in touch if you would like to discuss a commission.

Stephanie Walkett

Vivien Willacy

Born and bred in Morecambe, Lancashire, I have been living in Oxfordshire for almost 30 years.

I am completely self taught and didn’t start this amazing journey until mid-2018 following the death of my father. I was inspired by a cala lily on a condolence card I had received, it was a bit of a ‘on a scrap of paper sketch’ and to this day I still can’t believe how it turned out. Sadly I cannot display this piece because of copywrite – but it was the catalyst for what you see now.

I have never seen myself as arty, although I had a very talented Aunt who used to paint with gouache producing very detailed drawings which I always admired. I think this is probably why I took up this medium rather than any other, the ability to achieve such fine detail.

Due to work/life demands my art went on hold until 2020 when I was furloughed. Inspired by artists such as Bonny Snowdon and the late Sarah Le Vallois, I invested in a few coloured pencils and gave it a go. Up until recently a lot of my work has been pet portraits, I do enjoy these. The challenge of trying to capture the essence of someone’s pet, in most cases purely from a photograph.

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