Review By Jenny Drewery

Recently launched is our new Winter Exhibition with many new artists and makers. We have new work by regular artists Bren Head, Andrew Cheetham and Malcolm Ludvigsen.

Paintings by Bren Head

Starting at under £5 we have ceramics by Janet Hayton – perfect presents for those who love ceramics with character. Other festive hanging decorations include vintage inspired porcelain pieces by Amanda Mercer and whimsical angels and birds by Shirley Vauvelle.

Ceramic by Janet Hayton

Ceramic by Amanda Mercer

To follow is an exhibition review that poetically describes further what you will find.

Written by Jenny Drewery

Angela Chalmers’s quiet nudes lend a grounding calm to this exceedingly festive and lively exhibition.

After Glow by Angela Chalmers

In the centre of the gallery is a table festooned with an eclectic mix of felt, wool, silk, ceramics and glass, fashioned into jewellery, scarves, purses, pictures, everything under the sun – a mini-market for imaginative Christmas presents.

For sheer decorative fairy-tale vibrancy it’s hard to beat Claire West’s paintings.

Her two fat robins perched up a tree are almost but not quite camouflaged by the poppy-like blossoms and the tumbling leaves dislodged by their flutterings. Her acrylic work The Seafront is a fantasy symphony in pinks, yellows and blues, pleasing to the eye and uncompromisingly cheerful. The flowers and houses look just as excited to be beside the sea as we humans are.

Shirley Vauvelle’s glowing canvases call to mind those long-ago nights in remote places when something – maybe an owl’s hoot – has woken me up. I’ve padded across to the window and looked out at silent moonlit countryside. The awe on the faces of the artist’s birds and humans is exactly how I felt at the time.

In the bleak midwinter a figure trudges doggedly through Malcolm Ludvigsen’s atmospheric snowscape Walmgate Stray, York. Snow sits in heavy lumps on the boughs, the slightest gust will blow them down.

Memories of winter ’63 come flooding back.

Bulldog, cow, calf and rabbit have done their best to oblige by posing nicely for artist Paul Robinson as he sketches.

They look as respectfully curious as Nativity animals –but the cat, naturally, can’t be bothered. It’s having a good scratch.

Mindful of its location the gallery always includes in its exhibitions a celebration of the sea. As you look at Jean Luce’s Bempton Cliffs and Birds the cliffs come to life.  You can hear the yelling of the seabirds as they home in on their nests, and sense the texture of the grass clinging to the ledges.

Lynne Roebuck’s small and exquisite linocut entitled Tiny’s at Sea shows a boat tossed about on the crest of a wave.

It appears to be perilously poised, but what you find yourself focusing on is the exuberant bouncy playfulness of the sea.

And needless to say, Andrew Cheetham’s miniatures are selling well – the power of the North Sea, caught in a tiny frame.

For a chance to win one, spend £10 or more in the South Street Gallery or Rosie’s Boudoir and your name will be entered into our Christmas prize draw.

This special event starts today. There are no limits on how many times you can enter, as every purchase over £10 that you make up to December 23rd applies.

There are three individual artworks to win.

Do not miss this opportunity.

Draw will take place on Friday 23 December at 3pm

We are pleased to hear that one of our artists, Bren Head has been SHORTLISTED for the Ruth Borchard Self-Portrait Competition. There were over 500 entries and 170 of them will be exhibited at the Kings Place Gallery in London. The winner will be announced on 14th October.

Good luck Bren.

We have just taken delivery of some beautiful hand-made felt covered glass vases and stunning Nuno felt and silk scarves by local artist Lindsey Tyson. Always in stock are Lindsey’s felt bowls, mounted and ready to frame felt pictures, oil paintings, felted smelly soaps and notecards.

We are pleased to hear that one of our artists is featured in the high summer edition of the magazine Living North.

Shirley uses white earthenware and under-glazes to make components and small sculptures concentrating on layering colour and texture. These are then assembled together with driftwood, wire, reclaimed maps, vintage magazines and other interesting finds from local beaches. One-off contemporary pieces are made which are either hung or freestanding sculptures. Her inspiration comes from her garden, her love of the coast and the fun of creating objects that are very individual and quirky, with a tale to tell.

Thurs – Sat, noon – 5pm. Sun, noon – 4pm

Sometimes when your head’s full of stressful clutter, you get an urge to walk along the shore and savour the open spaces. Malcolm Ludvigsen, one of the exhibition’s feature artists, captures this feeling in his seascape Bridlington, July 19. On a tide-washed beach under towering skies, a few people are strolling, a man and his dog going in the opposite direction from the others. I like the impression that he’s passed within yards of them with maybe or a nod or a quick ‘hello’ and immediately settled back into his own thoughts. The smudgily painted figures have an impermanence in a setting that’s many millions of years old.

The other feature artist is Kate Kenney. Her design-conscious paintings show the rolling Wolds positively oozing fecundity. The farmer’s labour enhances the beauty of what’s already there. Rapeseed bursts from the soil in sizzling yellow. Tawny crops ripen under the autumn sun. Hockney-esque trees are simple statements rising from a glowing carpet of agriculture. Four of the canvases sold while I was in the gallery.

There’s an Andrew Cheetham I hadn’t seen before, showing the waves roaring past Flamborough, and some beautifully crafted driftwood wall plaques by Shirley Vauvelle. In Jon O’Connor’s ominous study of Redcar beach, the giant blast furnaces stride down to the shore in the distance.

Jon O’Connor

I know the scene well – on a fine sunny day, their industrial bullying bulk feels out of place, but here their blackness is quashed by the magnificent moody darkness of sea and sky.

There are echoes of John Piper in Adam King’s mixed-media studies – five Scarborough landmarks and a Castle Howard temple  -  which grabbed me the minute I saw them.

A solid architectural awareness shines through the seemingly loose technique. Jaunty black outlines are overlaid with splashy colour, making the structure feel alive.

In Jan Richardson’s ravishing piece of naïve art, the manipulation of perspective and colour gives us a glorious day in Whitby, seen through a child’s eyes.

A tour bus trundles down the hill and a boat chugs along the water, crammed with holidaymakers. The sea is impossibly blue, just as it appears in your memory when you look back fondly to your childhood holidays. The biggest figure in the painting is a seagull, beadily watching from a rooftop. Perhaps he’s there to remind us that birds were on the scene long before we were? No, on reflection I think he’s simply looking out for rich pickings.

I chortled at Sue Atkinson’s tiny quirky painting called Teatime. Four people head determinedly for home, beach swag packed away in enormous bags, sunbathing over for the day, minds totally focused on cups of tea, scones and maybe a nice bit of malt loaf. Wonderful!

By Jenny Drewery

Our summer exhibition includes the work by many local artists. Feature artists Kate Kenney and Malcolm Ludvigsen are two artists who both share a passion for plein-air painting.

Paintings by Kate Kenney
The changing colours and shapes of the east coast, moorland and Yorkshire Wolds are a constant focus in Kate’s vibrant paintings.

Paintings by Malcolm Ludvigsen
Malcolm can often be seen painting in the South Bay, and when he’s not painting he is a professor of mathematics with an international reputation for work on relativity, black holes and cosmology.

Mixed media works by Adam King

Ceramics by Shirley Vauvelle

Donkeys by Carol Shaw

Abstract paintings by Bren Head and Rock study by David Chalmers.

Participating artists include:

Painting
Andrew Cheetham
Bren Head
Kate Van Suddese
John Thornton
Sue Atkinson
Howard Carr
Julia Burns
Adam King
Jon O’ Connor
Jan Richardson
Carol Shaw

Photography
Angela Chalmers
David Chalmers

Printmaking
David Morris
Lynne Roebuck

Textiles
Angela Knipe
Lindsey Tyson
Jan Tyson
Lucy Antwis

Ceramics
Shirley Vauvelle
Karen Thompson

Digital Art
Ian Mitchell

Sculpture
Rodney Wilson

Gallery opening hours
Thursday, Friday & Saturday 12 – 5pm Sunday 12 – 4pm

THE SOUTH STREET GALLERY
South Street
South Cliff
Scarborough
North Yorkshire
YO11 2BP

Tel: 01723 506010
E-mail: enquiries@ southstreetgallery.co.uk

http://www.southstreetgallery.co.uk

Sue Kershaw is currently spending time in the gallery during the North Yorkshire Open Studios. She is a mosaic artist who seeks to capture the flow and consequence of emotions throughout her abstract works. Passion, love, joy, confusion, empathy and karma are all explored.

Each design features 100′s to 1000′s of intricate hand-cut pieces known as tesserae including shards of teacups made from Ganges clay collected in Varanasi, India to seashore glass from Palermo, Sicily. Gold leaf Italian smalti, sicis glass and French porcelain are also strongly present.

Sue facilitates school and adult workshops and community art projects; and works to commission from her studio based in Ryedale, North Yorkshire. Sue has exhibited widely including: Leeds City Gallery; The Ferens (Hull City Gallery); The Biscuit Factory, Newcastle; York Hospital; and, York University.

The first weekend of the North Yorkshire Open Studios kicked off to a great start with many visitors. During the event, one of our artists David Chalmers demonstrated how he made carbon pigment paper. This is only a small part of the carbon printing process that he is currently using to produce his work.

David is currently working on a series of work that is part of  a ‘Celebrating Place’ project. He is photographing the trees of North Yorkshire Moors National Park.

Next Saturday 18th June at The South Street Gallery, he will be developing a carbon print at 3.30pm.

This is a great opportunity to witness a live demonstration of a Victorian process and also see one of his finished prints on display

Coming soon is an exhibition of work by five participating artists from the North Yorkshire Open Studios and is available to view and buy from 10 June until 19 June.

During the weekends of 10/11/12 & 18/19 June, you will be able to meet and chat with photographer David Chalmers, felt jewellery maker Angela Knipe, painter Andrew Cheetham, figurative Angela Chalmers and mosaic artist Sue Kershaw.