Winter Show

Albert Irvin (1922 – 2015) was a British abstract expressionist painter who produced large scale exuberant paintings, screenprints, watercolours, and gouaches. His works appear in many public and private collections all around the world such as Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia; Arts Council of Great Britain; British Council; Chase Manhattan Bank; Chelsea and Westminster Hospital; Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; Museum, Florida; Tate Gallery, London; Victoria and Albert Museum.

Jemma Powell (b. 1980) is an artist working in Oxfordshire who embraces observational preliminary drawing before working in oils, often through memory, to produce highly sensual works. Powell’s technique embraces making mistakes working intuitively through the process of applying the paint, wiping it off, reapplying with brush or palette knife, scrubbing it and using her fingers to make expressive marks, “I like the mistakes, they are the most exciting part, things start to appear and the painting takes on a life of its own.” Powell treats her still lifes and interiors as she would a landscape, simply another way of expressing colour, shape and form. The results are beautifully composed and balanced paintings that bring the viewer into a tranquil and contented place full of scent, taste and warm sunlight. Powell is also an actress and attended Bristol University and has a BA in Drama as well as a Diploma in acting from The Oxford School of Drama.

British artist Daniel Crawshaw (b. 1967), is a painter intrigued by the fragile potential of mountains and is an obsessive gatherer of material. Walking in the peaks of North Wales, the Pyrenees or Canada, he photographs and distills experiences into emotive paintings that reflect both the beauty and daunting isolation of nature and the elements, in varying scale. Crawshaw says, ‘Through oil paint I hope to articulate lost moments common to us all and relish the possibility of transforming empty scenes into settings for others to occupy’.

 Rosannagh Scarlett Esson graduated from Oxford Brookes in 2016 with First Class Honours in Fine Art and was awarded the Fine Art Dissertation Prize for the best critical submission in the year. Based at her studio in Oxfordshire, Rosannagh’s work explores the alchemy of painting by abstracting colour and form through exposure to elemental forces. Symbolic and unconventional materials are mixed in experimental ways that work with, rather than against, the transformative effects of fire, rain, ice, time or gravity to reflect the untameable nature of the elements, and the duality of creation and destruction. Themes explored include wildness, rewilding, ecological succession and alchemical symbolism. Since graduating, Rosannagh has exhibited in the UK and Europe, and has work in several private collections across the UK.

John Piper CH (1903-1992) was a British painter and book illustrator. Regarded as a pioneer of Modern Art, Piper's oeuvre provides an important and affecting view of mid-century England. His work not only naturalistically represents the structures and landscape of his subjects, but uses the language of abstraction to develop an internal relationship to the setting, instilling a sense of tone and atmosphere into his paintings. Born on December 13, 1903 in Surrey, England, he went on to study at the Richmond School of Art and the Royal College of Art. Piper gradually began exhibiting and distributing his work throughout the United Kingdom until the start of World War II, when he was contracted to become a wartime artist. Concentrating on ravaged architecture, Piper was given unprecedented access to official bunkers and control headquarters, culminating in some of the most touching and revealing works produced during the war. Piper gained considerable acclaim until his death on June 28, 1992 in Fawley Bottom, England. Today many of his works can be found in prominent institutions, such as the Tate in London.