Art & Contemporary Art

Kirsty Whyatt

Kirsty Whyatt was born in Saddleworth, Greater Manchester but is now based in Leeds, West Yorkshire. Kirsty gained a degree in Exhibition Design at Humberside University (now the University of Lincoln) before embarking on a career as a freelance photographic stylist, which she has done for over twenty years.

Kirsty began her artist career in 2017 when she took the plunge and converted half of her garage into a studio. For Kirsty the light in a painting is the most important thing, it brings atmosphere “like nothing else”.

Art & Contemporary Art

Jane Walker

Jane Walker is a printmaker who uses the reduction linocut technique to produce handmade limited edition prints.

Each print is created from a single block. Through each stage of cutting, inking and printing the image is revealed as the actual block is destroyed. A reduction lino print can therefore never be reprinted and the editions are small. There is no opportunity to go back and modify previous layers.

Jane studied at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art before following a career in design at the BBC in London. She has now come full circle and returned to her first love, printmaking and particularly linocuts.

Fascinated by the bold, graphic and sculptural qualities of the medium her inspiration comes from the spaces in between objects and the patterns they create. Ordinary things; flea market finds, souvenirs, red cherries, jugs, coffee pots, pans, fresh flowers are all brought together to evoke a feeling, a memory or a sense of place.

Jane Walker is a member of the Oxford Printmakers, the Gloucester Printmaking Cooperative and an elected Associate member of the Royal Society of Painter Printmakers (RE).

Jane took part in our January Small Painting Show 2022.

Find out more about Jane here.

Ian Turnock

Ian Turnock’s sculpture is inspired by pattern, structure and symmetry in nature. One of his main sources of inspiration are the silhouettes formed against the sky by trees at different times of the year. The spaces between the branches and leaves are just as important to him; an aesthetic concept known in Japanese culture as ‘Ma’ which is akin to the silences between the notes in music. Often it is the empty spaces and gaps and their relationship to the tree that Ian Turnock is looking for just as much as the leaves and branches themselves.

These spaces are an invisible energy that give shape to the whole.

The influential graphic designer, Alan Fletcher, referring to Ma in his book The Art of Looking Sideways says:

“Space is substance. Cézanne painted and modelled space. Giacometti sculpted by “taking the fat off space”. Mallarmé conceived poems with absences as well as words. Ralph Richardson asserted that acting lay in pauses… Isaac Stern described music as “that little bit between each note – silences which give the form”

Ian’s background in graphic design influences his exploration of form and line. Drawings and photographs are the starting point from which he develops an organic, abstract and figurative sculpture. He creates intricate drawings from which the final artwork is digitally cut into stainless steel, corten weathering steel, aluminium, copper and plywood, transforming the drawn line into a tangible object.

Red more about Ian Turnock here

Modern British

Robert Tavener

Robert Tavener, a Printmaker was born in London and attended Hornsey College of Art from 1946 to 1950, following his war service in the army.

He settled in Eastbourne, teaching at Eastbourne College of Art and Design as well as St Martin’s School of Art in London. Robert Tavener is best known as a printmaker and was a senior fellow of the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers (RE) and produced work for clients including Shell, the BBC and various children’s book publishers.

He exhibited for 34 years in succession at the Royal Academy Summer Show and his work is in many public collections including the Victoria & Albert Museums and Government Art Collection.

Robert Tavener, Printmaker and Illustrator

Art, Contemporary Art & Illustration

Lisa Stubbs

Lisa Stubbs is a Yorkshire-born illustrator of children’s books, an author and a printmaker with a background in graphic design.

After graduating from Batley School of Art, Lisa initially trained as a greeting card illustrator and her love of children’s illustration stemmed from creating cards, as well as designing toys and games for children.

More recently, Lisa has worked in book publishing; creating and illustrating picture books for young children. In 2014 ‘Lily and Bear’ was published to great reviews. A paperback edition is due to be published in April 2016 and the story is currently being developed into a stage production, with a follow up adventure expected in September 2016.

Lisa’s work is inspired by her love of family life, children’s artwork, the hands on screen printing process and vintage children’s book illustration. She has been involved with the ‘Mr Benn to Miffy ‘ exhibition on Children’s book illustration at The Cooper Gallery in Barnsley and is regularly asked to run creative children’s workshops in schools and libraries.

Art & Contemporary Art

David A Parfitt

David A Parfitt RI was born in Cornwall but lives near Bath. He is a landscape painter, working with watercolours and water-based media. Although David knew that he wanted to draw and paint from an early age, it was many years before he could devote himself full time to painting (working as a civil servant for 27 years).

‘I had no art training and am totally self taught, but managed to paint while working and I eventually started selling my work in local galleries. This encouraged me to make the change to part time working so I could develop my painting further full time as an artist in 2007, helped by the fact that our children had left home’.

David was elected a member of the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours in 2011.

David A Parfitt RI won The Neil Meacher Sketching Prize in the RI 200 Exhibition (2012), the Frank Herring award in 2014 and the Winsor & Newton award in 2016 for ‘the group of paintings judged to be the most outstanding contribution to the exhibition’.

I am passionate about watercolour, with its fluidity and uncontrollable nature; to find how the medium can be used to express and convey a feeling for the moods and atmosphere of the landscape. Although my work is placed within the traditional or representational sphere, my aim is to create something which has a sense of place without looking too contrived or deliberate. The whole approach is about experimenting and developing as I attempt to push the water-based medium as far as I can without the use of opaque or white pigment.

In the past few years, I have found that I spend the majority of my time working in the studio whereas previously I completed around 60% of my work en plen-air. I still believe that it is essential to work on paintings outdoors, with the challenge to get things done quickly and simply, but more often than not these days, I take long walks with my sketchbook, a small box of watercolours and a camera (my phone). I use the sketches and photographs back in the studio to make paintings and monoprints giving thought to experimentation or to work purely from memory.

Art, Contemporary Art & Illustration

Jane Ray

Jane Ray was born in London, studying art and design at Middlesex University. This is where she began her career in art designing greetings cards, book jackets and posters, before moving into children’s book illustration, where she now specialises in fairy tales, mythology and folk tales. Jane has worked with many different publishers.

Notable titles include; Moonbird by Joyce Dunbar, Stories for a Fragile Planet, retold by Kenneth Steven and Zeraffa Giraffa, a lively and characterful children’s book by Dianne Hofmeyr for Frances Lincoln. Original works of art from all these titles as well as limited edition prints are all available from the Watermark Gallery.

Jane’s work frequently takes her into schools where she finds the thoughts and responses of children to be invaluable. Recently this has involved a project creating 200 mythical beasts for a pop-up festival in a London primary school, a set of painted murals for Enfield children’s library as well as ongoing art workshops for refugees in Islington.

In addition to her work as an illustrator, Jane Ray enjoys writing books and we are very pleased to offer original artwork from her title, The Dolls House Fairy, in the Watermark Gallery collection.

Modern British

Monica Poole

Monica Poole, Wood Engraver (1921-2003) was born in Canterbury, Kent and was introduced to wood-engraving by Geoffrey Wales at Thanet School of Art, Margate in 1938. From 1945-1948 she studied at the Central School of Art, London and encountered wood engravers Noel Rooke and John Farleigh.

She exhibited regularly with the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers and was also a member of the Society of Wood Engravers and Art Workers Guild. Her work was shown in a retrospective exhibition at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford in 1993.

Modern British

John Piper

John Piper (1903-1992), born in Epsom, Surrey, was an English painter, printmaker and designer of stained glass windows.

He trained at Richmond School of Art and the Royal College of Art. Amongst his well-known commissions were the collaboration with John Betjamin on the ‘Shell Guides’ to Britain and his work as an official war artist in the Second World War.

He designed the stained glass for the Baptistry window in Coventry Cathedral. John Piper lived for many years at Fawley Bottom near Henley-on-Thames where he died in 1992.

Archives: Artists

Art & Contemporary Art

Kirsty Whyatt

Art & Contemporary Art

Jane Walker

Ian Turnock

Modern British

Robert Tavener

Art, Contemporary Art & Illustration

Lisa Stubbs

Art & Contemporary Art

David A Parfitt

Art, Contemporary Art & Illustration

Jane Ray

Modern British

Monica Poole

Modern British

John Piper

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