BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//wp-events-plugin.com//7.4.5//EN TZID:Europe/London X-WR-TIMEZONE:Europe/London BEGIN:VEVENT UID:8096@artinliverpool.com DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London;VALUE=DATE:20240127 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London;VALUE=DATE:20240310 DTSTAMP:20240123T221902Z URL:https://www.artinliverpool.com/events/the-atkinson-quartet/ SUMMARY:The Atkinson: The Atkinson: QuARTet DESCRIPTION:‘QuARTet’\nGroup Exhibition by Sue Stevens\, Lawrence Johns on\, Brian Minnery and Chris Hughes\nThe Landing\, The Atkinson\, Lord Str eet\, Southport PR8 1DB\n27th January – 9th March 2024\nHot from success ful shows last year at the Castle Park Arts Centre in Frodsham and The Art House in Southport\, four enterprising regional artists are returning to S outhport in January for a new display – ‘QuARTet’ - at The Atkinson in Lord Street.\nOverseen by Liverpool based painter\, Sue Stevens\, the e xhibition 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.\nRepresenting the breadth and diversity of each artist's individual style and subject matter\, they have reassemb led in 2024 to share their passion for their respective medium with a cohe sive\, colourful and engaging exhibition.\nOriginally a Fine Art alumni of The Liverpool Institute\, Sue Stevens returned to education in 1998 to un dertake a Masters Degree in Art Psychotherapy at Goldsmiths College in Lon don. 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 att ractive at first glance but beyond which lies an emotional depth\, rich in life\, intensity and complexity.\n“I aim to tempt the onlooker to engag e 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 univer sal accessibility to the work and aims to allow everyone an experience tha t is personal and unique to them.”\n\n\nOften intimate and fragile\, alt hough Sue’s canvases are carefully considered they are spontaneously pai nted. It is for this reason that her work is so engaging and personal.\n “I aim to produce work that is distinctive and instinctive\, that holds a rawness that is genuine\, honest and never contrived. I approach each pa inting with a desire to capture a moment only\, a fragment of time capturi ng 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\, nothi ng kept from the viewer about the work they see or the artist that painted them but there are many possible levels of interpretation and understandi ng about both.”\nEntirely self-taught\, internationally celebrated paint er Lawrence Johnson similarly takes satisfaction in the different aspects that others see in his finished work.\nSelected for the prestigious Exhibi tion 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.\nAlthough his style is often mistaken for the revolutionary neo-imp ressionistic Pointillist method of painting complex patterns of small colo ured dots to form an image\, Lawrence has developed a unique technique of his own making to achieve his imaginative artwork.\n“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 li fe 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 e xhibiting widely.”\nHis painted landscapes approach the four seasons\, c apturing their many colourful changes and the views encompass a wonderful sense of time and place.\n“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 fro m my imagination.”\nAlso self-taught\, Liverpool based Brian Minnery soo n discovered the scroll saw was the perfect tool to combine his interest o f woodworking and mixed media art.\n“All my work is three-dimensional an d cut using a scroll saw and chisels. I started using the scroll saw aroun d ten years ago after watching a YouTube clip of an artist making clocks f rom intricately cut panels using a scroll saw. Once I started cutting trad itional fretwork style pieces I was hooked and everything just followed on from there.”\nBrian quickly began to generate his intricate three-dimen sional designs seduced by the dexterity of the saw’s pin shaped reciproc ating blade from which emerged landscapes\, nature compositions\, fantasti cal story pieces and even famous faces.\n“Each piece is sketched out on paper and then transferred onto the wood before cutting with the scroll sa w. I try and use reclaimed wood wherever possible. Some of my latest work is cut from an old disused bookcase we have recently replaced.”\nIn addi tion to the scroll saw\, Brian also uses acrylic paints\, inks\, a wood bu rner\, carving chisels and knives to complete his distinctive creations.\n After a long career in education restricted him to making pots in his spar e time\, self-taught potter\, Chris Hughes from Ainsdale\, has gone from s trength to strength since retirement and now operates from his purpose bui lt 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\, coilin g and slabbing modelling techniques that are glazed in sympathetic natural tones.” \nFavourites are blue and black (Tenmoku) complemented with iro n\, cobalt and copper oxides to enhance his surface decoration.\n“I make bowls\, bottles\, plates\, lamp-bases and clocks. My forms are often shar p edged and finely balanced\, the bottle forms frequently twisting as they rise. I use features from the landscape on my pots. Mountains\, streams a nd beaches occur frequently and also weathered doors\, windows and stone w alls.”\nThe natural environment is also a stimulus to his 2-D artwork: “For my drawings I use coloured pencils or pastels. I like the direct co ntact 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\, c louds\, landscapes and water I try to represent. The drawings have become more and more abstract and many later works are totally so but still remai n heavily influenced by elements from the landscape.”\nThis latest displ ay by the group will be on show in the ‘QuARTet’ exhibition at The Atk inson in Southport from 27thJanuary – 9th March 2024. ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.artinliverpool.com/wp-content/upload s/2023/12/Lawrence-Johnson.jpg CATEGORIES:Exhibitions LOCATION:The Atkinson\, Lord Street\, Southport\, Sefton\, PR8 1DB\, Sefton \, United Kingdom GEO:53.646956;-3.006919 X-APPLE-STRUCTURED-LOCATION;VALUE=URI;X-ADDRESS=Lord Street\, Southport\, S efton\, PR8 1DB\, Sefton\, United Kingdom;X-APPLE-RADIUS=100;X-TITLE=The A tkinson:geo:53.646956,-3.006919 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:Europe/London X-LIC-LOCATION:Europe/London BEGIN:STANDARD DTSTART:20231029T010000 TZOFFSETFROM:+0100 TZOFFSETTO:+0000 TZNAME:GMT END:STANDARD END:VTIMEZONE END:VCALENDAR