The Atkinson: QuARTet

The Atkinson: QuARTet

When

27.1.24 - 9.3.24    
All Day

Where

The Atkinson
Lord Street, Southport, PR8 1DB, Sefton

Event Type

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‘QuARTet’

Group Exhibition by Sue Stevens, Lawrence Johnson, Brian Minnery and Chris Hughes

The Landing, The Atkinson, Lord Street, Southport PR8 1DB

27th January – 9th March 2024

Hot from successful shows last year at the Castle Park Arts Centre in Frodsham and The ArtHouse in Southport, four enterprising regional artists are returning to Southport in January for a new display – ‘QuARTet’ – at The Atkinson in Lord Street.

Overseen by Liverpool based painter, Sue Stevens, the exhibition will also feature fellow Merseyside artists, painter, Lawrence Johnson and the woodworking and mixed media art of Brian Minnery plus the stylish ceramics of Chris Hughes.

Representing the breadth and diversity of each artist’s individual style and subject matter, they have reassembled in 2024 to share their passion for their respective medium with a cohesive, colourful and engaging exhibition.

Originally a Fine Art alumni of The Liverpool Institute, Sue Stevens returned to education in 1998 to undertake a Masters Degree in Art Psychotherapy at Goldsmiths College in London. Her elegant, impressionist paintings have a dream-like quality that responds to light, height and energy while at the same time rejecting the need for total recognition. Deliberately titling her works in a way that invites each viewer the freedom to project their own imagination onto each canvas, Sue’s paintings have an immediacy that not only makes them attractive at first glance but beyond which lies an emotional depth, rich in life, intensity and complexity.

“I aim to tempt the onlooker to engage with the varying colour palettes, to encourage a closer inspection, to bring the small details to life, layering of paint and marks made purely by pallet knife. The seductive use of colour and texture creates a universal accessibility to the work and aims to allow everyone an experience that is personal and unique to them.”

Often intimate and fragile, although Sue’s canvases are carefully considered they are spontaneously painted. It is for this reason that her work is so engaging and personal.

“I aim to produce work that is distinctive and instinctive, that holds a rawness that is genuine, honest and never contrived. I approach each painting with a desire to capture a moment only, a fragment of time capturing an impression and emotional response that is gone almost before I have time to take it all in. There is nothing hidden in these paintings, nothing kept from the viewer about the work they see or the artist that painted them but there are many possible levels of interpretation and understanding about both.”

Entirely self-taught, internationally celebrated painter Lawrence Johnson similarly takes satisfaction in the different aspects that others see in his finished work.

Selected for the prestigious Exhibition of the Best of Merseyside 2008 at the National Conservation Centre, in 2009 Lawrence held his first solo exhibition in the World of Glass, St Helens and is currently represented by various galleries across the North West.

Although his style is often mistaken for the revolutionary neo-impressionistic Pointillist method of painting complex patterns of small coloured dots to form an image, Lawrence has developed a unique technique of his own making to achieve his imaginative artwork.

“I painted during my teens but work and family life took over and I didn’t paint at all for 30 years. A life changing heart attack and subsequent bypass changed my life quite dramatically and I once again took up painting – and I loved it! I haven’t stopped painting since, developing my style over time and exhibiting widely.”

His painted landscapes approach the four seasons, capturing their many colourful changes and the views encompass a wonderful sense of time and place.

“I have always loved the Impressionists and am highly influenced by the natural landscape but occasionally include parts of the built environment, however the vast majority of my work comes from my imagination.”

Also self-taught, Liverpool based Brian Minnery soon discovered the scroll saw was the perfect tool to combine his interest of woodworking and mixed media art.

“All my work is three-dimensional and cut using a scroll saw and chisels. I started using the scroll saw around ten years ago after watching a YouTube clip of an artist making clocks from intricately cut panels using a scroll saw. Once I started cutting traditional fretwork style pieces I was hooked and everything just followed on from there.”

Brian quickly began to generate his intricate three-dimensional designs seduced by the dexterity of the saw’s pin shaped reciprocating blade from which emerged landscapes, nature compositions, fantastical story pieces and even famous faces.

“Each piece is sketched out on paper and then transferred onto the wood before cutting with the scroll saw. I try and use reclaimed wood wherever possible. Some of my latest work is cut from an old disused bookcase we have recently replaced.”

In addition to the scroll saw, Brian also uses acrylic paints, inks, a wood burner, carving chisels and knives to complete his distinctive creations.

After a long career in education restricted him to making pots in his spare time, self-taught potter, Chris Hughes from Ainsdale, has gone from strength to strength since retirement and now operates from his purpose built studio environment in his back garden now kitted out with his own kiln: “My output is small as I hand build all my pots using pinching, coiling and slabbing modelling techniques that are glazed in sympathetic natural tones.”

Favourites are blue and black (Tenmoku) complemented with iron, cobalt and copper oxides to enhance his surface decoration.

“I make bowls, bottles, plates, lamp-bases and clocks. My forms are often sharp edged and finely balanced, the bottle forms frequently twisting as they rise. I use features from the landscape on my pots. Mountains, streams and beaches occur frequently and also weathered doors, windows and stone walls.”

The natural environment is also a stimulus to his 2-D artwork: “For my drawings I use coloured pencils or pastels. I like the direct contact with the surface of the paper using smudging and rubbing techniques to achieve the variations in tones and shades which I see in the skies, clouds, landscapes and water I try to represent. The drawings have become more and more abstract and many later works are totally so but still remain heavily influenced by elements from the landscape.”

This latest display by the group will be on show in the ‘QuARTet’ exhibition at The Atkinson in Southport from 27thJanuary – 9th March 2024.