
Jac Butt & Victoria Bryan at Chester Arts Centre
Two solo exhibitions by Jac Butt (gallery downstairs) and Victoria Bryan (middle gallery upstairs)
Starting at 6 PM onwards… Join us for a glass of wine and meet the artists!
About Jac Butt
‘I am a self taught Artist. Born and raised in Manchester. Over the last 15 years I lived in Newmarket Suffolk. Here I exhibited my Art work in many exhibitions in Suffolk, Norfolk and Cambridgeshire.
I was involved in a Community Project HORSE ABOUT NEWMARKET (Only For Life). This Project raised 28,000 for charity.
I have always been a very creative person and always had my sketch book at hand. My imergry shines through on the canvas. I mainly work with acrylics, and adore colour. I am passionate about my Art work and love being in my studio. People say have a very unique style. I say to them, yes it’s the Jac Butt stayed.
I paint what I see from my environment and from personal experiences. The painting, Born Too Soon (not for sale), is a tribute to my son Oliver Wall work, who was born too soon in 1999.
I have recently relocated to this beautiful city, Chester. Here I will remain to stay and develop my art further on my most recent work of my little people and houses (houses are homes). In this work I have taken my mind back to my childhood memories. There is more scope for me to develop this theme of work’.
About Victoria Bryan
My recent practice explores the visual connections found between human, animal and plant anatomy, and the ways in which each living structure can be viewed as a victim of its own mortality. My work investigates how traditional forms of artwork, specifically still life and vanitas, can be reconstructed in order to modernise and challenge the connotations surrounding them. Through their composition, and the amalgamation of contemporary and classical concepts, these drawings are able to present the natural condition in an unnatural format, as the real becomes surreal and each form of plant life is inevitably subjected to decay and death.
The suspension of organic imagery on white backgrounds is essential to the construction of these artworks, as they become isolated from their original context and are presented in a timeless state of decay. The contrast additionally serves to imitate the traditional medical sketches historically used to provide insight into the functions of the human body.
By mostly drawing from my own imagination, I aim to not only retain the investigative and instinctive properties associated with drawing, but also to inject a fictitious element into my art, exposing the viewer to a realm of nature that is both beautiful and engaging yet, as the familiar is rendered uncanny, is subsequently disconcerting. The resulting disjointed narratives are initially intended to appear ambiguous; it is not until you look closely that the anatomical associations begin to emerge.