Indigo Art Exhibition - 3rd June 2017

ALL THE ARTISTS EXHIBITING AT THIS EXHIBITION ARE LONG STANDING CUSTOMERS OF INDIGO  

 MERIEL BALSTON

Meriel trained for several years with Graham Sproston.  She is a colourist; painting with multi-loaded palette knives - and her fingers! - to achieve her particular take on subjects.  She enjoys slowly working up to the essence of the painting usually resulting in an impasto weave of colour.  Landscape is her main love, particularly Wiltshire where she lives.  She also paints in Scotland, Europe and sometimes further afield.  She exhibits in Wiltshire, and for many years has taken part in Marlborough Open Studios.

 CHRISTINE FERTEY-GREEN

 Christine Fertey-Green was born in France but has lived the past 26 years in the UK. She studied life drawing and composition at the Ecole du Louvre in Paris and still life and portraiture with John Jonas in London.

 Her semi-abstract compositions, inspired by the shapes, forms and colours of the contemporary world, reflect her individual concept and expression of beauty and her deep sense of spirituality. Her passion for composition and colour management give her style a clear harmony.  Her paintings hang in private collections in UK, China, Italy, France and Germany.

 Christine's exhibitions include:- 

DAVINA GIBBS

Davina Gibbs studied and graduated from the Byam Shaw College of Art, London and has exhibited widely in London, Hampshire, France and Scotland.  The latter being her home although she now lives in Wiltshire.    She has exhibited in several London galleries including the Piers Feetham gallery in the Fulham Road, and several times in The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition.   She has also painted bespoke work for private clients.

The paintings on glass are something apart from her usual work which is normally oil on canvas.  Her glass work was inspired by seeing the work of the late Bloomsbury painter Dora Carrington who updated the Victorian Tinsel pictures. She was fortunate enough to meet Joan Souter-Robertson who also painted on glass and learnt a great deal of the technique from her.

 GILL MARRINER EDWARDS

 At thirteen years of age Gill started her art training at a school in Surrey with a specialist Art Course.  Following school she then attended Bretton Hall College (University of Leeds) where she studied Art and trained as a teacher.

 Over the past few years, through her work, Gill has been exploring the idea of the layering of time, sometimes using collage, script and gold leaf to create abstracted forms.  She is interested in Middle and Far Eastern Art and Design with its emphasis on tradition and historical references.   Gill likes the idea of beauty in decay, a visual history, the layering of years revealing and uncovering the influence of the human need to mark, adorn and often destroy that which has come before,

 She is excited to be exhibiting in the wonderful surroundings of Indigo and hope her work compliments the exquisite objects available.

FERELITH MOLTENO

Ferelith was born in Scotland, the elder daughter of a successful sculptor mother and a Highland Estate owner father of Italian/South African descent.

Her father was killed at the end of the war and in 1948, with a new step-father, the family moved to Peshawar in the new state of Pakistan. Such evocative surroundings, combined with the lively encouragement of her mother, encouraged Ferelith to draw and paint from an early age.

The real passion of her life is—and has been for the last 20 years—India.  Ferelith and her husband Tim [born in Upper Assam], have travelled extensively in India, and it is here that she finds the influences she needs for her latest mixed media collages:  old account books, train tickets, old stamps, examples of calligraphy and block printing, newspapers, cigarette packets and so on, often picked up in the street or found abandoned in some deserted palace.

Ferelith has illustrated books on travel and cookery; exhibited in Scotland, London, Hampshire and India; taught art groups and held workshops, and has always kept an illustrated travel journal. [Over 30 at the last count].

Enthusiasm, colour and experimentation are her watch words!

 MARY MORGAN MORTON

Mary’s passion for art began at a young age; she studied Textile Design at Leeds University and went on to work for Dorma Textiles.

Having taken a break to start a family she returned to University to study for an MA in social work and started what was to be a 15 year career as a probation officer in South London. Mary’s creative urge returned during this period, whilst encouraging a talented young offender to enter an art competition about drugs. She entered her own work in the same competition and to her surprise she won.

By the time she was 50 years old, Mary had made the decision to return to university for a third time to study fine art. She retired from the probation service and moved to Wiltshire so she could devote as much time as possible to her painting, involving  herself with other local artists in the area.

Mary says, “I do my best to find time to paint, but I have a demanding husband and lots of grand-children who need my time and love too”.

Mary takes part in Marlborough Open Studios.

 KATIE O’SULLIVAN

Katie O’Sullivan’s meteoric rise as a horse painter has been almost without parallel.   She is at the pinnacle of an extraordinary career and is considered by many to be the foremost equestrian painter in the British Isles.    She was brought up steeped in horses in rural Ireland, moved to England and studied contemporary art at Chelsea School of Art.    Her passion always lay within horses and now married to a racehorse trainer in Lambourn, she has been able to indulge in this passion, evoking the beauty of the horse with wonderful and unique contemporary twist.

 RICHARD SHIRLEY SMITH

Richard Shirley Smith was born in Hampstead in 1935 and was educated at Harrow School.    He studied at the Slade School of Fine Art and in Rome.   His main output as an artist has been a sequence, over 50 years, of solo shows of paintings, illustrated books, trompe-l’oeil murals, engravings and bookplates.    All these works reflect his interests in Italian architecture, theatre, classical ruins, Surrealism and still-life.

During the 1980’s he painted a number of mural decorations at Eaton Square, Princes Gate, Kensington Palace Gardens and others outside London.   His fiftieth birthday was marked by a substantive retrospective at The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.   After the exhibition, the museum acquired all his available engravings for their print room.

Since 2002 he has completed a three-storey mural, The Cycle of Life, at Sheepdrove and a mural for Sir Roy Strong called Laskett Shades.    Engravings have been acquired by the British Museum and the V & A.   The Bodleian Library has requested his main archive; and the Moss Collection of all his printed work, books, engravings and bookplates has gone to Yale University.    The Fleece Press published his collected bookplates in 2005 and this book shows his decorations for The Highgrove Florilegium of 2008.

 PRUE SWINDELLS

Prue was born in Calcutta, British India.  Her father was a British businessman who was a partner in one of the leading managing agencies of the British Raj.  She attended school in Darjeeling until 1946, when her family decided to repatriate their children to England before the partition of India in 1947.  Prue has many family connections with India both past and present. Her brother Mark was the BBCs’ India correspondent for many years and still lives there.  Prue started her painting career in the 1980’s when she and she husband, who had had a long army career, settled near Pewsey in Wiltshire.

Inspired by India, Prue says that the vibrant colours and the rather harsher eastern light are very important to her.   These most recent paintings, part of the Enigma series, are works using not only brushes, but various tools such as squeegees and are painted in many layers.

Prue takes part in Marlborough Open Studios.