News - Frogmore Street Gallery

December Guest Exhibition

The December exhibition is a collection of work by the Blackwood Community Art group.

Sian Drobac: Sian works mainly in acrylics producing quality artwork in the subject areas of pets, wild animals, landscapes and portraiture.
Sally Lloyd: Sally has recently become excited by the possibilities of ‘Drypoint’ for portraiture.
Lin West: Lin is reluctant to limit her art to one medium and enjoys experimenting with different techniques to fully explore ways of capturing colour and atmosphere. Lin often uses mixed media to create her pieces.
Howard Thomas: Howard is a frequent world traveller who continually gains a lot of experience and inspiration for his paintings. Seascapes and the natural world feature in a lot of his work and where he enjoys bringing abstraction into the paintings he produces.
Merlith Thomas: Merlith’s work reflect her love of fabric, pattern, colour, beading and stitchery to enhance the final design.
Janice Coslett Casault: A multi-media artist inspired by her love of flora, fauna and landscapes near and far. She enjoys utilising a range of art materials including watercolours, acrylics, pastels and oil-based pencils to create her artwork and will select specific media to suit the subject at hand.
Ellen Jones: Ellen loves painting and working with textiles.
Averil Davies: Averil utilises a range of materials depending on the subject matter of her creations and enjoys watercolours, felt, embroidery and acrylics.
Chris Williams: Chris’s work is inspired by nature and its many colours, shapes and features. More recently Chris enjoys exploring found and discarded objects to create modern pieces of art that have meaning.
Alan Braddon: Alan was able to fulfil his passion as a graphite and charcoal artist.

Patricia Clark: Pat enjoys experimenting with a variety of different mediums, but loves the texture created when using acrylics and a palette knife.
Gerard Clark: Gerard has always enjoyed painting and sketching and where his favourite artistic pursuit is portraiture.
Denise Pagington: A creative experiment became a lasting love for the art of transforming glass through colour, heat and texture.
Jane Young: Jane’s first love in creating art is drawing and she takes particular delight in creating street scenes or landscape which include buildings. Her favourite medium is pen and enjoys combining ink and watercolour to create dramatic effect.

Exhibitions

November Guest Exhibition

Edyta Petrelli is a Polish artist based in Abergavenny. She mainly enjoys painting landscapes and trees, using strong compositions and rhythm created through colour blocking and bold contrasts. Her simplified forms border on abstraction but remain recognisable as landscapes. These colour choices emphasise moods rather than realism. Her paintings are not meant to document a specific place, but to evoke the joy, warmth, and vitality of being in the landscape itself.

Exhibitions

September Guest Exhibition

Torfaen Arts is a group of 20 members, who live in south east Wales and exhibit throughout the valleys and towns of Monmouthshire, Torfaen and Powys. Conceived almost 20 years ago and given a grant for exhibition equipment they started showing their work in schools, community hubs and leisure centres. However it wasn’t long before they developed their outlook and skills, taking their art to the public as they believe that Art transforms spaces.

‘Through an artist`s eyes’

Denise Jones
Denise was born in Cwmbran but lived for a number of years in West Wales before returning to Cwmbran.
After taking early retirement Denise decided to start painting again. Her interest in nature fired a wish to reproduce the trees, skies and seas she sees around her. Denise is fascinated by the shapes and colours of plants and clouds, which provide her with opportunities to spend many hours of enjoyment and opportunities to express and develop her skills. Her goal is to see her voice and thoughts coming through in the work she produces, many of which are memories of living and holidaying in Wales.

John Howles
John is a photographer and digital designer based in Cwmbran.
John got his first camera in 1977 and his first real computer in 1991. Since then he has used both together in his professional and personal life, having learned to program and to design using both.
He has always been inspired by the sea (in fact water of any kind) and at one point he cycled around the whole of the Welsh coastline for charity, sleeping in a tent and photographing landscapes and seascapes as he went.
John is fascinated by digital design using a blend of photography and other elements. He has managed various projects for companies, churches and local groups.

Ann McMail
There is beauty to be found in many things places, people and nature.”
Ann finds much of her wonder and inspiration in the valley town of Blaenavon, South Wales close to where she lives. She finds that walking through the stunning mountainside provides her with solace and warmth and passion which allow the ideas to flow through her mind onto the page. Ann works in various mediums exploring and developing new ideas until they become unique pieces existing within her mind before transferring them to canvas.

Jennifer Martin
Jennifer is an artist who lives in Torfaen in South Wales.
She had a keen interest in painting from an early age at school. The real turning point in her journey back into Art came through a chance meeting with several local artists who were members a local art group called “Torfaen Arts”. Jen is inspired by seascapes, mountains and people where she uses various mediums including pastels, acrylics and oils to express herself.

Diane Rosser
Diane only took up art as a hobby when she retired, having never really painted before, she was encouraged to “try it out” by an artist friend and neighbour. She joined a local art class in the “Power Station” in Cwmbran and fell in love with it. After experimenting with various different mediums she finally settled on pastels, Chinese inks and acrylics as her favourites. Diane has been an active member of Torfaen Arts for many years; holding various positions within the group and regularly exhibits at various venues throughout the year.

Ray Rosser
Ray credits art with the opportunity to add a new dimension to his life and develop a different approach to life. He uses the natural world of colour, texture and light that he finds around him and combines it with his engineering experience and background that provide him with a sense of perspective, scale, symmetry and proportion which he expresses in his artwork. Whilst Ray has worked in various media such as oils and watercolour, his preferred medium is acrylic which he says, allows him to be more expressive and bolder by using a pallet knife where possible to avoid excess realism which best suites his style of painting. Although Ray has experimented with portraits and abstracts, his favourite subjects are landscapes and seascapes.

Cliff Lyon
Cliff generally uses acrylics on either canvas or paper. He paints various subjects including landscapes, still life and pet portraits.

Joanne Price
Joanne has a great love and interest in the Welsh language and teaching led into learning about the culture and scenery of Wales. This love of the Welsh language and culture has continued throughout her life and is a source of inspiration for many of her paintings. She also draws ideas and inspiration from exploring colour, pattern and shapes using semi-abstract forms to produce vivid paintings.
Joanne works mainly in acrylics but also likes to experiment with other media to create bold colourful pictures incorporating light, atmosphere and space. These separate sources, together with Jo’s willingness to experiment, combine to provide her with a wide-ranging portfolio which includes paintings, drawings, embroidery, fibre art, printmaking, and photography.

Karina Isles
Karina prefers to paint using watercolours,
Karina draws much of her inspiration from illustrations found in books, magazines and the internet.
Her subjects are very diverse, ranging from botanical to quirky animals.

Valerie Stewart
Val’s personal portfolio is wide-ranging and includes drawing, painting, printmaking, photography, needlework and silver-work. Val draws her inspiration from the landscapes and seascapes of Wales where she combines realism and abstractism in the same painting where her love of colour and patterns is clearly visible. Val is also passionate and excited by circus performers and gypsies. Her superb works capture the energies, forms and vivid colours of both these groups from whom she draws much of her inspiration.

Patricia Clifford
Patricia is excited and influenced by music, dance and Welsh folklore. She aims to capture the essence of the music while drawing the viewer in. Often Patricia’s pieces develop by experimentation and knowledge of the mediums she works with. Her love of colour is evident in her work and can be vibrant or tranquil.
Working in oils, acrylics and inks, her works develop through layering subtle marks on the surface that combine to give a textual quality and glazing between each layer.
Patricia is passionate about encouraging creativity and positivity.

Valerie Sinderby
Valerie uses many photos taken from lots of holiday destinations which often lead her to take a journey of rediscovery, and which encourage her to produce a painting.

Jane Jones
Over time Jane has tried various different mediums. However, she continues to be drawn back to acrylics.
Jane lives close to the sea in a beautiful part of Wales and finds inspiration for her works in her surroundings, especially the sea.

Steve Reardon
Like many others Steve gains enormous inspiration from the Welsh landscape around him. This together with the people and so many childhood memories, provide him with much of his inspiration and enjoyment. Steve mostly works in acrylics and charcoal.

Jane Rosair
Jane paints many different subjects, but her main love is landscapes, especially those in the beautiful part of Wales in which she lives. These provide much of her inspiration, and together with animals and flowers which also feature in many of her paintings, give her much enjoyment. Jane predominately works in acrylics where she has developed a style that incorporates a mix of exaggerated colours and unexpected hues. She places loose brushstrokes side by side with the intention of producing a loose, vibrant and uplifting painting.

Lorna Savidge
Lorna mainly creates landscapes in acrylics and mixed media. She admits to being by nature a bit of a perfectionist, but ageing eyes, bigger brushes, a more forgiving inner critic together with a willingness to experiment have allowed her to develop a more expressive style which she calls ‘catar-abstr-act’.
For Lorna, painting is all about being dynamic. She often revisits old works and overlays them with new brush strokes and collage, where these changes and alterations then become part of the creative journey for both the work and Lorna herself.

Jill Powell
Jill is a surreal, mixed media artist with a love of surrealism and abstract impressionism in art, esteeming the works of Salvador Dali, Rene Mageitte, Joan Miro, Andre Masson and Max Ernst.

Exhibitions

August Guest Exhibition

Founded in 2001, MaP is a creative, supportive and innovative group of Artists and Designers with a focus on textiles. The group are passionate about their work and expanding the audience of Contemporary art/craft, raising its profile and increasing links within the sector and outside. The group currently has ten members from Wales, Ireland, England and Finland.

‘Something Old, Something New’

Since its inception, the group has exhibited work on many themes, more recently focussing on environmental issues, such as regenerating interest in the use of linen and wool. Currently, the group are exploring ways of incorporating local, recycled and natural materials in their work. This exhibition features both old and new work showing the diversity of their skills.

Claire Cawte is a textile artist and educator with over twenty years of experience, known for her environmentally focused practice and commitment to sustainable making. Working with materials such as wool, flax, silk, natural dyes, and locally foraged flora, her work explores the deep connection between process, material, and place. Drawing inspiration from ancestral life; when natural materials were crafted into intricately adorned artifacts for ceremonial purposes, often carrying symbolic, spiritual, or social meaning, her practice honours the symbiotic relationship between humans and the earth. Her use of biodegradable materials reflects a profound respect for nature, allowing her creations to return gently to the soil and reinforcing the cycles of regeneration and sustainability that lie at the core of her practice.

Jane McCann trained as a fashion designer at Belfast College of Art and the Royal College of Art with her focus primarily on Irish tweeds and linens. Since her return to Northern Ireland, over a decade ago, she has collaborated with other practitioners for the promotion of natural fibres both for garments and Natural Fibre Composites (NFC). For ‘Something Old’ she uses linen as one of the most ancient and sustainable materials in an ageless and enduring jacket style while the concept of “Something New” is that the jacket, once assembled, has been customised with a hand screened overprint.

Alison Moger is a practising artist working with free-stitch, mixed media and print; her work will always have a recycling, environmental and family ethos at its heart. She is an avid collector of vintage textiles and domestic objects that show the passage of time and the human interaction; Alison embraces storytelling and valley life through the visual process.

Sirpa Mörsky, lives in Finland. Currently she works on personal projects. She finds herself foremost a maker of clothes. She is also fond of embroidery, knitting and weaving.

For the exhibition Sirpa has designed and made six embroidered linen dress collection by name Tired Light. Tired light theories are astronomical hypotheses regarding the fading of visible light from distant galaxies and objects, such as the red and blue shift. In this context, tired light reflects observations of light and the sky in Tampere Finland from March to November. The observations have been painted by an artist Pirjo Seddiki on linen fabrics with surplus pigments from a digital printer and these fabrics have been made into a series of wearable paintings in the form of dresses. In the exhibition Sirpa is also exhibiting digital printed linen cushions. Prints are based on Pirjo’s paintings. Dresses and cushions represent the cooperation of Pirjo’s and Sirpa’s Ehkä design (Maybe Design) brand, a research project at the interface of art and productisation.

Mandy Nash trained as a jeweller. Her three passions are colour, pattern and technique, heavily influenced by both traditional and contemporary textiles.

Over the last twenty years she has also been developing work in felt, combining this with her jewellery practice to create both functional pieces and work that is purely decorative.

Lynda Shell is a textile designer making handmade bags & purses. Her journey began with studying Contemporary Textile Practice. Lynda draws inspiration for her designs from historical artefacts and translate her ideas into contemporary patterns that are silkscreen printed onto linen cloth.

Her latest ‘No Waste’ collection has been created using silkscreen printed off-cuts kept for many years from her handmade bag collections.

The designs are inspired by the bold and distinctive quilts produced by the woman from the African American community of Gee’s Bend, Alabama, who created remarkable abstract quilts made from work clothes remnants and scraps.

Like the woman of Gee’s Bend Lynda’s collection has been crafted using a considered combination of colours, patterns & plains with an improvisational approach to placement. Each product created is therefore completely unique and special.

Sue Shields is an Illustrator / Printmaker who also teaches. Her linocuts are strong on pattern, with a fondness for animals in general, and sheep in particular. She is currently using collagraph to explore themes from the Wrexham quilt.

Susan Smith produces ‘one-off’ textile piece, primarily hand embroidered, which she has been making and selling for many years using such themes as houses, gardens and hearts, with Welsh chapels being her current focus.

Whether simple or flamboyant, Classical or Gothic, these delightful chapel facades are depicted in cloth and stitch, using a variety of techniques and incorporating re-purposed Welsh wool fabric, aiming to celebrate some of the familiar and well-loved buildings which form such a part of Wales’ cultural heritage.

Alison Taylor designs and hand makes luxury knitwear on vintage domestic knitting machines, from her studio in South Wales. Colour, pattern and texture are fundamental to her design process and combining old school craftmanship and contemporary design she creates statement pieces with a timeless quality.

Her work is inspired by the rich heritage of her Welsh culture and environment from castles to countryside. With ancestors involved in the Welsh Woollen trade, the influence of woven construction and patterns can often be traced within her knit structures.

Using soft to handle, sustainable yarns, she knits her intricate patterns in luxurious merino lambswool with touches of cashmere and alpaca. She employs fully fashioned knitting techniques to avoid waste and with care, the knitwear should last well beyond the seasonal fashion lifecycle. Careful washing and storing, together with mending will enhance the garment and prolong its wear.

Elspeth Thomas uses digital embroidery either from photographs or hand drawn artwork in her work, which includes hand and machine embroidery using both natural and synthetic fabrics.

Elspeth loves to create surface texture, whether it is through heat manipulation or stitch manipulation and embroidery either stitched by hand or by machine. Her work continues to be influenced by natural landscapes, fauna and flora.

Exhibitions

July Guest Exhibition

CCAS Art Group

CCAS Art Society consists of an eclectic mix of talented artists with members predominantly based in south-east Wales and the border counties of England.

You will find a dynamic range of subject matter on display, produced through the application of a wide range of painting mediums and styles. Credit must be given to Jantien Powell of Chapel Cottage Studio and other professional artists and tutors who have provided support and tuition along our artistic journeys.We are excited to showcase the talents of several of our members through our exhibition and sincerely hope you enjoy our artwork!

Kate Belmond

Kate gains inspiration from the natural world, with a particular penchant for seascapes. Kate has used a variety of mediums in the past but her acrylics are now predominantly used to create her dynamic paintings.

Jennie Burge

Focussed on interpreting the worlds wonders whilst honouring its creator. Respect and care are central and its expression runs through it.

Her signature style incorporates stitch, found and repurposed treasures, reshaping them into something uniquely beautiful. Echoing God’s gentleness in transforming our brokenness into something infinitely more precious.

Art produced illustrates care for the world, it’s resources and inhabitants. Valuing overlooked items demonstrating something new and innovative.

Bill Chase

Bill began painting 15 years ago and his current tutors are Jantien Powell and Emma Rhydderch Price. Bill dabbles with charcoal, acrylic and watercolour but prefers the tactile immediacy of soft pastel mark making. “Pastels are easy to use buy hard to master. I like using vibrant colours with landscapes and portraits.”

Originally from Norfolk, Bill loves walking in Wales and lives in Crickhowell.

Karen Logan

Karen returned to painting after a career in nursing, inspired by the landscapes of Abergavenny and North Pembrokeshire. She works in pastel and experiments in mixed media, creating textured, loose and abstract pieces. With a focus on landscapes she is developing a growing interest in portraiture.

Kathy Medliott

Kathy Medlicott uses watercolour, oils or acrylics to portray the beauty of land and seascapes in its various forms and has a particular interest in local and Pembrokeshire scenes. (katherinemedlicott@gmail.com)

Fiona Miles

Fiona has always painted in watercolour and likes to paint landscapes and flowers – taking inspiration from many holidays in Snowdonia and her garden. She is a an engineer and finds the delicacy of floaty background washes against vibrant flower colours a complete contrast. She has more recently added various water based mixed media techniques to her watercolour repertoire.

Sarah Powell

Never having painted or drawn since school Sarah began her art journey 10 years ago attending the Welsh Academy of Art in Cwmdu. It specialises in the size, sight approach of the old masters working in charcoal and oils.

Her work includes portraits, still life and landscape. Following painting experiences in Italy, Portugal and Morocco with artists of different genres and styles her work has evolved to incorporate mixed media and a more abstract style. “It’s good to experiment and find one’s style and move forward on the artistic journey.”

Jane Rosaire

Jane is an artist based in Cwmbran. She has always loved drawing and painting and recently retiring has provided the opportunity to devote much more time to making art.

“I paint many subjects, but my love of the landscape in this beautiful part of Wales, along with the flora and fauna within it, provides much of my inspiration.

Working in acrylic and mixed media, Jane loves to use exaggerated and unexpected colours. She places loose brushstrokes side by side with the intention of producing a loose, vibrant and uplifting painting.

Becky Scott

Becky Scott is an amateur artist working in soft pastels. She is inspired by the landscape of the South Wales valleys and seeks to create a sense of joyful song in her work. In her floral pieces she explores the way light falls on petals and creates a sense of movement and texture.

Clare Tuggey

Clare trained as a commercial photographer but has always enjoyed painting.

She learned batik painting in Malaysia and dabbled in watercolours but after many courses and workshops finds she is most at home painting in oils, mostly landscapes.

Exhibitions

June Guest Exhibition

From The Mountains to the Sea, Engraved

Kathleen Littler

Abergavenny based artist, Kathleen Littler, works primarily in the medium of wood engraving with relatively small works but sometimes expanded into large collages made up of fragments of engravings to express her ideas on a big scale. Alongside some of her engravings there are watercolours and pencil drawings related to specific subjects.

Originally a native of Pembrokeshire, many of her designs are inspired by that coastline, in addition to images of visits to Orkney where she has found a remarkable similarity to her early coastal surroundings. These will be contrasted with her recent mountain environment.

Most of her work has a strong sense of place, where even a notional image such as her “Usk Frolics” of otters and kingfishers needed to be anchored in a particular setting.

Engraving is done using fine tools on endgrain hard wood to support the amount of fine detail; nowadays synthetic substitutes are often used with exactly the same effect. Most of her work is on wood which is why some appear in the round, which is the cross section of a piece of boxwood.

She has found wood engraving to be an ideal medium for the creating of a design which reflects the qualities of rhythm, pattern, movement and contrasts of light in nature. Such a technique was first introduced by the great engraver, Thomas Bewick in the eighteenth century and has been developed by many great engravers since.

In our own times, the medium has been re-invented as an art form in vibrant and original ways; a truly contemporary medium for expressing ideas and comment on the age we live in.

She uses a Victorian platen press to print her engravings by hand from the block. This is a highly skilled process which can require as much time and patience as the original design and cutting of the block.

There will be an opportunity during the course of the exhibition to attend a demonstration of the technique of engraving, and more of Kathleen’s work can be seen at www.kathlittler.co.uk

Exhibitions

May Guest Exhibition

Neurotypical?

(Brain functions in the way society expects)

The question mark stands for never wanting to be what society expects.

Caroline says, ‘my brain definitely does not work how it is expected to!’

Where her inspiration used to come from nature and organisms, it now comes from a more internal perspective/natural intuition and over the last few years Caroline’s work has been focused on healing through painting.

Having suffered for many years with chronic headaches, her art has become a therapeutic necessity. She tries to bring colour and joy to confusion and pressure that is internalised.

Caroline is intrigued by brain function and Neurodiversity. Neurodiversity is the natural variation in how human brains work and process information. How our brains are wired differently in terms of how we process information, communicate and sense the world.

The paintings aim to show confusion, chaos, memory problems and loss. Contrasting between the hardest times and moments of levity and peace.

Using the medium of acrylic paint on canvas to achieve saturation of colour and vibrancy she often inserts monochrome or neon aspects to disturb the colour harmony, creating her own inner surreal landscapes and visual mind maps.

There can be beauty from even the darkest places.

Caroline’s paintings can be hung any way, whichever pleases the viewer.

Exhibitions

April Guest Exhibition

Welsh Landscape

Much of Robin Elgar’s creative inspiration comes from the rhythms, colours and shapes found in the countryside. Her love of wild places, especially the Welsh mountains where her mother lived, are found in her landscapes.
Robin enjoys exploring the layering of colour in her work, interpreting the changing landscape through the seasons.
Robin Elgar resides in Buckinghamshire. She is a retired teacher who exhibits and sells her paintings. Robin has worked in her local community on projects involving children and supporting adults in developing their artistic talents, always in an imaginative and creative way.

Exhibitions

March Guest Exhibition

Sarah Powell and Artistic friends

A journey of different styles, genres and mediums by Sarah and artist friends.

We all have different experiences on our artist journey ,from tutors, influences, experiences and experimentation. Be it from the traditional oils and charcoal to multi media abstract. It forms who we are as artists.

Exhibitions

Valentine’s Special

Our resident spoon carver, Dave Richards has created some special pieces just for Valentine’s day.

Hearts, Chains and other Love Tokens

As well as Love Spoons, which Dave makes from locally sourced hardwoods, to his own designs, using only hand tools, he also makes a range of love tokens in the same way. These include single hearts, some made into pendants, double hearts, interlinked hearts and chains with hearts. As with the spoons, each is hand made from a single piece of wood.