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Born in Leeds 1967, Sarah obtained a 1st class degree at St Martins, Lancaster in 2004 and continues to work
in paint and print while lecturing part time. Sarah lives in Lancaster and is a founding partner of Bellwood
and Wright Fine Art.
"My work began as largely figurative, but over time a passionate relationship with the medium itself
developed, and the need to possess and control it moved my paintings into the purely abstract. As my work has
matured a vocabulary of shapes has begun to emerge from the abstract, creating a visual landscape which, for
me at least, has begun to rediscover figurative or representational qualities.
Continually drawing, both from life and sketching landscapes, feeds my studio based work with abstract shapes,
lines and scratches made in charcoal, ink and paint. These in turn feed my paintings. My experience in
printmaking, including three years in a non-taught printmakers workshop at Cumbria College of Art and Design,
has also influenced my painting to the extent that they are built up in layers like multiple plates."
Born in Jarrow in 1950, John studied landscape architecture at Leeds Polytechnic, qualifying in 1976.
After sever years of dabbling, without much success, he made a concentrated effort in 1982 to improve his watercolour technique. His style developed and improved rapidly, and by 1983 he had his first exhibition at Leeds Playhouse.
In 1985 he decided to take the plunge, by leaving his job and taking up full time painting. The inspiration for his paintings comes firstly from his love of watercolours as a medium and secondly from his love of the mountains. He has been a keen and active climber ever since he was first bitten by the bug in 1969.
Over the past 10 years John has had several one man exhibitions and has been involved in many group shows. His work is also continously on display at many private galleries throughout Cumbria.
In 1989 John achieved his lifelong ambition of moving permanently to the Lake District.
My work explores my relationship with and to the landscape. It is inspired by places I have visited and my home environment
of Alston Moor. My paintings are a response to the landscape rather than a representation of it and are made in layers,
often incorporating organic materials and fragments of canvas that has previously been left outside, using the marks made
by soil, water, animals and vegetation as a stimulus. Creating interesting textures and a sense of space in the paintings
is important to me and it is these concerns which drive the painting process.
Born in Manchester in 1947, John studied Fine Art at Reading. He has had numerous exhibitions including
London, Tokyo and Vancouver.
He admits to being a fan of Blackpool football club, and lives and paints in the Eden Valley, Cumbria.
Debbie was born in Reading 1972 and lives in York.
1991-1992 York College of Further and Higher Education
1992-1995 Bretton Hall College BA(Hons) Fine Art
"My passion for landscape was cemented during my Fine Art degree course studying at Bretton Hall College,
a former stately mansion, that is now part of Leeds University. The College painting studios were located
within landscaped grounds, yet bounded by the major industrial northern cities of Sheffield, Leeds, Wakefield
and Barnsley. This brought an awareness of both the aesthetic and social realities of the environment that we
occupy and the necessity for the artist to acknowledge them."
Information about this artist will follow shortly.
Born in Felixstowe, Suffolk in 1954, Chris has been painting professionally since 1980, beginning with house
portraits, specialising lately in landscape, architecture and interiors. He lives with his wife and family in
Weardale, Co. Durham
His exhibitions include Grey College Durham; Bowes museum, Barnard Castle; Cassian Gallery, Lincoln; Quaker
Gallery, London.
His paintings are in private collections in this country and abroad including Grey College, University of
Durham; Marathon Oil East Brae Platform; Durham TEC hospitality room Durham C.C.
Born in 1957, Stockton on Tees.Lives in Weardale, Co Durham with her husband artists Chris Mouncey.Her paintings are inspired by natural history
primative and antique art.
She works mainly in watercolour with the addition of wax, acrylic, various kinds of crayon, gold leaf and collage.
Rosemary lives and paints in Appleby, Cumbria.
1960-1965 Liverpool College of Art
1965-1966 Liverpool University
She has had numerous exhibitions, amongst them The woodlands Gallery London 2001, The Brewery Arts centre
Kendal 1999, The Orrell Arts Centre Liverpool 1997, The Royal Scottish Academy 1997.
Rosemary has won various awards including:
1998 prize winner, Dumcroon Arts Centre, Wigan
1997 finalist cover competition, artists magazine U.S.A
1997 finalist, the fish publisher's art prize, Eire
"The type of imagery that I respond to is interiors and still life devoid of the figure. It is hoped that
by removing any physical human presence in the work their aura is intensified rather than diminished. Though
painted in a traditional manner I hope my paintings address issues such as what values we put on
representations of our environment both in terms of narrative and formal concerns."
Tom was born in Manchester in 1928.
He qualified at Leicester College of Fine Art in 1953.
He paints in oils, watercolours and pastels.
Tom Lives in Cumbria and is a regular contributor at the Lakes Society Exhibition.
Born in Colne, Lancashire in 1948, studied at Burnley and Canterbury Colleges of Art. After teaching art at
the Manchester Grammar School, he became a full-time painter in 1980.
He has exhibited extensively in Britain and abroad, featuring several times in the John Moores (prizewinner
1978), The National Portrait Gallery and the Irwin Gallery, Sydney, Australia.
He combined painting with being a professional musician for many years and has worked on numerous combined
arts projects with dancers, musicians and performing artists. Since 1980 he has worked as artist in residence
in schools, colleges, galleries, libraries and other community spaces throughout the country.
He occasionally undertakes commissioned work and is represented in The Royal Collection, Windsor; The National
Portrait Gallery; The House of Commons and private collections of the Prince of Wales.
Chris Rigby was born in Lancaster in 1967. He studied Art at Lancaster and Morecambe College and then moved to Cornwall to study illustration at Falmouth School of Art.
After college he pursued an interest in the Old Masters with a period of tuition from ex-R.A. student and practicing painter Chris Robinson.
He returned to Cornwall in the late 1990s living for a time in St. Ives and then St. Just, sharing a house with the artist Paul Lewin. In 1998, Chris returned to the northwest to paint in his near-native landscape of the Lakeland Fells.
He has since mainly exhibited in the North, Cumbria in particular.
John Sibson lives in Cumbria having spent his youth in the north of England, earlier in Westmorland and later
on Tyneside. An earlier career in mining and quarrying took him to North Wales, Northern Ontario and the
Rockies of BC in Canada, the Highlands of Scotland and then Knaresborough, North Yorkshire. It was here that
he took up watercolour painting and quickly began to make a name with his distinctive style. He soon had a
number of one man and shared exhibitions in the Yorkshire area, and became an elected member and subsequently
Chairman of the Yorkshire Watercolour Society. This led to exhibiting pictures three times in the Houses of
Parliament, and at other times in Westminster, and as far a field as Poland.
He now lives Cumbria with his wife Frances. John paints full time in his studio at Hilton near Appleby in
Westmorland.
John's main subject matter has been the hills and dales of the North of England and the historic market towns
and cities of the area. The portrayal of the buildings within their landscape is his particular speciality.
More recently he has developed into marine art inspired by offshore sailing experiences and love of shipyards
and this has resulted in having pictures accepted for recent annual exhibitions of the Royal Society of Marine
Artists. An interesting part of his work covers industrial subjects, especially of mines and quarries and
includes locomotives steam traction engines, vintage tractors and cars etc.
Gareth Watson lives in Cambridgeshire and works in watercolour, using rough sketches and photographs in
developing semi- abstract pictures, which evoke mood and atmosphere rather than record topographical detail
The locations, which provide the inspiration for these paintings, have the element of solitude and are
scattered throughout Britain and further a field. A feeling for ancient sires is another factor, as is a sense
of order and balance that is almost architectural, and encompasses not only land but air and weather as well.
Sometimes it seems that this balance is so fine that the distinctions between land, air and water become
blurred and begin to overlap. The resulting image show a timeless quality, capturing the distance which exists
between the features of a landscape, rather than focusing on those individual features themselves.
Blocks and planes of soft, subtle colour blend and shift to reflect light and space. Mankind is absent from
these pictures but the works of man - standing stones, churches, industrial ruins - become embedded in the
landscape and provides a sense of place.
Gareth has exhibited at:
Heffers' summer exhibition, Cambridge
Bircham Gallery, Norfolk
Broughton House Gallery, Cambridge
The Heath, Ely
