Artists
Ivy Smith
IVY SMITH is a painter and printmaker. She has work in many public collections including the National Portrait Gallery ( where her commissioned portrait of Sir Richard and Sir David Attenborough is on show in the 20th Century Display), Norwich Castle Museum and Christchurch Mansion, Ipswich. Her main subject is people,their movements and poses and what they do. This interest led to a series of paintings and prints of swimmers. Present work concerns the seaside, how people behave there, but also the seashore plants that grow in particular locations
Jennifer Guest
Jennifer uses acrylic pen, ink and pencil to capture the mood of the water and surrounding environment. The humbling scale of the landscape, in relation to the swimmers, depicts the awe-inspiring beauty that draws us all in.
Sarah Hardy
Sarah Hardy is a Leeds based artist exploring memory, place and experience. Working mainly with abstraction for many years, since lockdown 2020 her focus has shifted to creating more figurative work that explores narratives around the times and experiences we’re living through.
Terry Beard
"My work is informed and inspired by elements within the natural and built environment, particularly the landscape which surrounds my studio. This is a varied landscape, with areas of flat farmland, punctuated with woodland and connected by ditches and drains. I live close to an area of preserved fenland which offers endless possibilities for visual interpretation. My work explores way of conveying a sense of depth and form using abstract marks and gestures such as blocks of colour and lines. During the making process intuitive decisions are made and serendipitous 'accidents' are embraced."
Megan Hall
Inspired by a renewed connection with water Megan began her printmaking journey in March 2019. A passion developed into a business and she now works out of Ocean Studios, Plymouth. Megan enjoys creating linocuts with clean lines and portrait imagery. She finds water her greatest muse for pieces and utilises her regular wild swimming adventures as inspiration. Her work is focused on portraying the feelings and tactile sensations of touching water and hopes her prints inspire others to swim outdoors.
Sian McGill
Much of Sian's inspiration comes directly from the places where she loves to spend time, outdoors enjoying the coastline and mountains of Wales. The paintings are a response to the landscape, an attempt to capture something of the experience and the energy of a place- how it feels to be there on that day.
An expressive and intuitive painter, she works mostly with a palette knife, but also paints with brushes , or fingers or whatever else comes to hand to get the desired effect. She enjoys experimenting with mark-making, colour and texture to create a variety of effects- this often leads to a degree of unpredictability, allowing the paintings to emerge almost by themselves.
Dave Thompson
Dave Thompson’s work revisits a classic era of poster design, recreated in the vibrant tones of 1950s travel art. Based in Southsea, Portsmouth he certainly knows how to capture a mood with his images that depict key sites in the island city he has called home for the past 30 years.
Dave has worked as a commercial artist for many years with advertising agencies and for the past 20 years as a freelance illustrator.
His style has been influenced by the artists who were famous for creating the travel posters for the London Underground, admiring the work of Norman Wilkinson. However this appreciation isn’t simply pedestrian, as he was himself commissioned to create a series of illustrations for London Transport over a number of years.
His views of Portsmouth and beyond have proved so popular that his body of work now includes scenes across the country and beyond. Looking to the future Dave has more local and national scenes to capture as the interest and commissions for his work continues to grow.
Samantha Lavorato
Samantha Lavorato is a self-taught abstract fluid artist originally from Canada based in London, UK. Creating pieces inspired by nature and space, her work allows her to constantly explore new places and image-making techniques, inviting the viewer to see nature in diverse ways.
Pouring brings her inner peace and offers a place to meditate on the beauty in the world. Her highest goal is to convey that same peace to the viewer, offering a moment of pause and a feeling of deep belonging.
Andrea Cook
Originally from England, Andrea studied architecture at Sheffield University and enjoyed the marriage of technical and artistic aspects. Since 2003 she has been working as a professional artist in the Netherlands where she runs a studio and gallery in the historical city of Middleburg with her husband, a fellow artist.
"My favourite place to be (apart from behind a canvas with a paint brush) is by the beach and sea, as you can see in much of my work. All year round open water swimming is a passion, as is trying to capture the light, colours and atmospheres that the water brings."
Lucy Bell
"In my personal pieces although I flit between mediums, I have a few defining factors. I love the sea and sea swimming. I love colour and pattern. I love washing lines and houses. I love to sketch to capture a moment in time that is unique as it's how I see the world."