Secret Art Auction 2023 Biographies

On this page: list of 2023 Secret Art Auction Artists and Artists’ biographies
See the Gallery of works submitted to the Secret Art Auction 2023

All artists generously contributing to the Secret Art Auction 2023:

Tracey Allen; Peter Babb; Peter Barber OBE RA; Anne Bardsley; Alison Barker; Tony Barrell; Gillian Berryman; Karl Bielik; Carol Bilney; Christine Bintcliffe; Anastasia Borodina; Olwyn Bowey RA HonRWA; Nick Bridson Baker; Helen Alexander Bristow; Amy Brocklehurst; Tim Brookes; Cathryn Bull; Tina Bullen; Rebecca Byrne; Lily Callway; Lee Campbell; Jack Candy-Kemp; Cinzia Castellano; Eve Chan; Julian Clary; Emma Clifford; Austin Cole RBA ARE; Amanda Helen Collings; Matthew Cort; Gabriela Costache; Laura Critchlow RMS; Anne Desmet RA; Sarah Gabrielle Dixon; Sharon Drew; Anna Dyson; Jo Ellis; Liz Ellis; Catherine. A Evans; Annette Fernando; Sue Flockhart; Fiona L Forth-Collyer; Janet French; Curt Gaudon; Jahan Gerrard; Bonnie Gibbons; Jill Goodchild; Liz Grammenos; Julija Greaves; Luca Guerzoni; Susie Hamilton; David Harsent; Ken Hoare; Melanie Honebone; Fran Howard; Sarah Hutchinson; Stephen James; Christopher Johns; Carole Jones; Katherine Jones RA; Joyce Joy; Dr. Janette Kerr RSA HON, PPRWA; Alexandra Leadbeater; Geraldine Leal; Cllr Rhi Lee; Chris Lemon; Sir Richard Long CBE RA; Tabitha Macbeth; Lorna Mackay; Clare Mackie; David Mackintosh; Stella Mance; Alex March; Sasa Marinkov; Megan McCubbin; Claire McGinley; Jillian McLaren; Graeme McNay; Ian McNicol; Shal Mines; Ernesto Montoya; Fiona Morris; Felicity Napier; David Nash OBE RA; Diana Nicholls; Farina Noorani; John O’Reilly; Peggy O’Sheel; Geoff Owens; Les Palin; Dasha Palmer; Meg Palmer; Jem Panufnik; Barbara Parry; Stella Parsons; Tom Pearce; Margot Peters; Diana Poliak; Yelena Popova; Cindy Powell; Val Price-Davies; Jonathan Pugh; Sarah Quayle; Malcolm Rains; Jay Rechsteiner; Claire Rice ; Lisa Robinson; Jenny Rogal; Cecilia Rouncefield; Mary Rouncefield; Adélie Scheffler; Axel Scheffler; Elizabeth Sen; Christopher Sercombe; Ian Shillaker; Kerry Sides; Miira Siltavirta; Karen Smith; Maria Spanswick; Susan Spencer Hayter; Jan Stevens; Paul Sunderland; Anne Swankie; Lenka Syruckova; Jill Temporal; Carol Thomas; Jenny Thompson; Vicky Thompson; Lorraine Thorpe; Fiona Timmins; Edit Toaso; Estelle Vera; Jane Wachman; Pamela Wakefield; Kat Whittaker; Breda Whyte; Sue Wilkins ; Alex Wilks; Chiara Williams; Kipper Williams; Helen Williams; Sioned Williams; Prof. Richard Wilson RA; Janet Wolchover; Levison Wood; Nicola Woods; Simon Wright

THANK YOU!

Secret Art Auction 2023 Artists’ Biographies:

Peter Barber OBE RA
Peter studied at the University of Sheffield between 1980 and 1983 and at the Central London Polytechnic from 1984 to 1986. Peter worked with Richard Rogers, Will Alsop and Jestico+Whiles prior to establishing his own practice in 1989. He is currently a lecturer and reader in architecture at the University in Westminster
Over the last 30 years Peter has designed a significant number of award-winning housing projects. Peter was awarded the Royal Academy Grand Prize for Architecture in 2015 and numerous RIBA and Housing Design Awards. In 2021 Peter was awarded an OBE for services to architecture in The Queen’s Honours, the AJ100 Contribution to the Profession Award 2021 and the RIBA Neave Brown Award for Housing.
He has lectured about the work of the Practice at many institutions, including the Royal Institute of British Architects, the Architectural League in New York, and numerous international and domestic university schools of architecture including Helsinki, Pretoria, Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Munich, Genoa Istanbul and Colombo as well as Oxford University and The Bartlett – University College London. In 2019 his work was the subject of a major retrospective exhibition entitled “100 Mile City and Other Stories” at the London Design Museum. He has been described by the Independent as one of the UK’s leading urbanists.
Website: http://www.peterbarberarchitects.com/
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Anne Bardsley
Anne Bardsley is a Manchester based artist creating work themed around endangered and vulnerable animals. Over the years she’s created a variety of artistic styles which allows her to present each animal in a unique way, she’ll employ a different technique depending on what impact she’s hoping to achieve. For Habitats & Heritage she’s created a watercolour painting that she hopes will speak to all animal lovers and bring someone joy for years to come.
Anne has sold work in several countries around the world, and in 2022 she exhibited in Oldham, Manchester, Leeds and London as well as being shortlisted for Artist Of The Year by Supporting All Artists. She has a great passion for animals and regularly donates work to help raise funds for many much needed causes.
Website : www.annebardsleyart.co.uk
Instagram & Facebook : @annebardsleyart
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Tony Barrell
Tony is a Teddington-based artist, author and editor whose interests include music, architecture and the unknown. He responds well to commissions and can be contacted at tonybarrell@msn.com.
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Karl Bielik
Karl lives and works in London.
His paintings have been in numerous shows at home and abroad, including The John Moores Painting Prize, 
The RA Summer Show, WAC Art Contemporary, The BEEP Painting Prize, The Marmite Prize and The London Open.
He is a member of Contemporary British Painting and is the Founder and Director of Terrace Gallery in London.
Bielik also writes and performs in Lark who are signed to Standard Lamp Records.
Website: http://www.karlbielik.com/
Instagram: @karl_bielik
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Anastasia Borodina
Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2023; NEAC 2022, 2021 & 2020; RP 2021 & 2019; Royal Miniature Society 2018; MA Hon. St.Petersburgs Academy of Arts, 2019.
Instagram: @_anastasia.borodina
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Olwyn Bowey RA
Olwyn Bowey studied at the West Hartlepool School of Art and at the Royal College of Art, where she received a First Class Diploma, a continuation scholarship and a David Murray Landscape Scholarship.
She first exhibited at the Leicester Galleries, London, and contributed to group exhibitions at the Zwemmer Gallery, London in 1961 and the New Grafton Gallery, London in 1969. Initially interested in portraiture, she later moved to the countryside to concentrate on landscape and still-life, being particularly interested in the tradition of the artist plantsman. An exhibition on this theme, entitled Olwyn Bowey Drawings, was held in the Friends’ Room at the Academy in 2000. Nowadays, Bowey always works on the spot, often outdoors, but mostly in her greenhouse, which doubles as a studio.
Elected Royal Academician in 1975 (ARA 1970), Bowey is also an Honorary Member of the Royal West of England Academy and an Associate of the Royal College of Art. She lives and works in Sussex.
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Nick Bridson Baker
Nick has worked as a freelance cartoonist and humorous illustrator for over forty years.
He now draws fewer cartoons and produces drawings, paintings and monotype prints.
His work falls into these categories:
On-the-spot drawings of places, people and events. Published in The Oldie and national newspapers. Nick has a large ‘on-the-spot’ archive, drawn for publication.
Drawings from memory and imagination.
Paintings also from memory, imagination and from drawings.
Monotype prints one-off prints in colour and black and white.
Cartoon drawings published in Punch, Private Eye, The Spectator, The Oldie, The Financial Times and national press and magazines.
Poetry He has been writing poetry for over twenty years and has been published in various poetry magazines.
Website: https://nickbridsonbaker.co.uk/
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Rebecca Byrne
Rebecca is an American painter living and working in London; she works on canvas and aluminium, as well as 9m long paper which she uses to create immersive site-responsive installations that can be rolled up and reinterpreted in another location. Her interest is in the psychological impact of spaces, both man-made and natural, and she presents strange landscapes that reflect an interior world.
Byrne’s uncanny and fantastical landscapes are rooted in fragments of memory, reality and fantasy, they explore our relationship to the environment by referencing images of extinct and existing plant life that never actually co-existed, creating pictures of nature in flux. Throughout her practice there is an obscured personal narrative; Byrne’s recent work draws from her background growing up in urban Chicago and spending weekends with her parents as they attempted to establish a small organic farm well before most people were considering our relationship to the land. Researching the systems and structures of plants, she uses real and imagined subject matter to propose an alternate natural world.
Beginning with intuitive gestural marks that cover the surface and become seeds for the painting that follows, Byrne reacts to these early marks by drawing, scratching into and layering up to an image until the surface becomes a palimpsest of painting. She repeats her subject matter, mining the constant state of change in the natural world to explore the parallels she finds in the limitless language of painting.
Website: https://rebeccabyrne.com/
Instagram: @rbyrneblack
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Lee Campbell
Professional artist/tutor working on Eel Pie Island in the Thames using traditional oil techniques and varied subject matter. Residencies in a series of unusual locations including science laboratories, churches, and boatyards. Using a fusion of mysticism and science to generate different moods and to suggest hidden dimensions within the familiar. Commissions welcome Visitors welcome
Website: www.leecampbell.co.uk
info@leecampbell.co.uk
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Jack Candy-Kemp
Jack is a British artist living in Surrey. He graduated from the MA Painting course at Wimbledon College of Arts, UAL in 2018. His practice is centred around tourism. Looking at the liminal spaces between destinations, he portrays the reflective nature and the exhaustion that comes when travelling. His work responds to the way we visualise the contemporary tourist experience and aims to destroy the contrived rose-tinted imagery that we are subjected to on a day-to-day basis through social media. Jack paints in gouache on primed board, creating a matte finish which opposes the glossy pages within a travel brochure, whilst formatting his paintings in size as to mimic the screens in which travel imagery is most commonly shared. Jacks work has been exhibited in London galleries and European exhibitions and has his book, ‘Beyond The Liminal’ included in The National Poetry Library Collection.
Website: https://jackcandykemp.com/
Instagram: @ jackcandykemp
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Julian Clary is an English actor, comedian, novelist and presenter. He began appearing on television in the mid-1980s. Since then, he has also acted in films, television, stage productions and numerous pantomimes.
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Austin Cole RBA SGFA
Austin is an artist printmaker and a member of the Royal Society of British Artists (RBA) and Associate Member of the Society of Graphic Fine Art (ASGFA) Austin has exhibited at the Royal Academy of Art summer exhibition on three occasions, the Discerning Eye, The Courtauld Institute and other venues in London, Bath and other cities around the UK. He has won the Artichoke Studio Prize on two occasions, and the Arts Club Mayfair Prize at the RBA 2012 annual exhibition.
Website: https://austincole.co.uk/
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Laura Critchlow
Laura is based in Buxton, Derbyshire. Laura is a member of the Royal Miniature Society, painting mainly miniature still life works in acrylic and larger portrait paintings in oils.
Her art takes inspiration from everyday objects and the people that surround her. Laura spends time mindfully looking in order to depict a classically in-spired work that captures a moment in time.
Website: https://lauracritchlow.co.uk/
Instagram: @laura.critchlow
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Anne Desmet RA
Anne was born in Liverpool, UK, in 1964. She gained a BA & MA at the Ruskin School of Art, Oxford University, and a Postgraduate Diploma in Printmaking at Central School of Art and Design, London, UK. She has taught wood engraving widely, inc. at the RA Schools, British Museum and Middlesex University and is a former External Examiner in Fine Art at Aberystwyth University and at Kingston College of Art. In 2011, Desmet was elected a member of the Royal Academy of Arts and is only the third wood engraver ever elected to the RA in its entire history. She is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers (RE) and the Society of Wood Engravers (SWE). In 2018, she was elected an Honorary Fellow of Worcester College, Oxford.
Website: https://annedesmet.com/
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Sharon Drew
Sharon is a London-based artist whose process-based abstract paintings respond to her experience of the natural world – from her garden and local surroundings of Epping Forest to the coasts of Cornwall and Kent. Drew states: I’m captivated by the power, vitality and drive of nature. The works show a confident use of colour, are often large-scale and employ a range of approaches. From diluted sweeping gestural brush strokes to smooth rubbed back surfaces revealing older detailed layers, Drew treads the fine line between risk and control. Drew’s paintings have been embraced by the world of fashion and interiors, used in shoots for Vogue, Stella McCartney, Gucci Flora, Soho Home, purchased for Jigsaw St Pancras International and published in The World of Interiors and Elle Decoration magazines. Paintings were also selected for 2022/3 Soho Home – Chelsea Studio, London & Melrose Avenue, California. Drew completed her Fine Art MA at UAL Central Saint Martins in 2003 where she is now Mentor to Fine Art MA and BA students. Drew’s work is in private collections in USA, Canada, Switzerland, France and UK.
Website: www.sharondrew.com
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Anna Dyson
Anna (b. 1965) is a British painter who lives and works in London and was educated in Fine Arts at Kingston College. Dyson reaches for unexpected colour as she works quickly and “intuitively” on multiple canvases at once, covering them in swirling, flowing, vibrating forms. Her pieces are vibrant, colourful, textured and are created using vegan friendly acrylic paints. She enjoys the conversations around the things people in her paintings see which are important to them.
Dyson’s neurodiversity is the touchstone of her practice, and her work carries with it the translation of her experience navigating a world wired for others. Dyson’s work foregrounds her experience living with ADHD and Autism while at the same time surrendering to the vibrant, electric intuitive condition her subconscious rests in. “I leave everything at the door and paint,” says Dyson.
Website: https://www.annadyson-intuitiveart.co.uk
Linked in: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/anna-dyson
Facebook: @annadysonintuitiveart
Instagram: @annadyson_intuitiveart
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Annette Fernando
Annette is a visual artist with nine years’ experience of exhibiting and developing projects with artists & community groups in the UK and internationally. Her practice is concerned with the manipulation of time, storytelling and local histories via the medium of film, printmaking, drawing and painting.
As an internationally acclaimed artist and prolific illustrator Annette has exhibited work across the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Sri Lanka and Hong Kong, has been in numerous magazines and was the winner of the Student Award for the prestigious Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize in 2014, one of the biggest draughtsmanship exhibitions in the UK.
Website: https://annettefernando.carbonmade.com/about
Facebook: @annettefernandoartist
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Susan Flockhart
Susan is a watercolour artist based in Twickenham, UK. She takes much of her inspiration from nature and love to paint the weather. Her style can be slightly whimsical and owes a lot to a childhood spent poring over illustrated children’s books, long past bedtime.
Website: www.susanflockhart.com
Instagram: @susie.flo
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Curt Gaudon
Curt is an emerging artist living in Toronto, Canada. He is trained in fine art and design with a BDes Specialized Honours from York University.
He paints spirited scenes of nature that move and sway like water, branches, and leaves. Through research, observation, and reflection, he works to master an understanding of paint materials and visual language.
His approach utilizes plein-air and studio practice to iterate and explore the relationship between Ocean and landscape through rhythm, memory, and universality.
Curt works to incite and contribute to positive action for mental health and environmental stewardship.
For a list of available works please contact curtgaudon@gmail.com
Website: https://curtgaudon.com/
Instagram: @curt.gaudon.art
Facebook: @curt.gaudon.art
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Johan Gerrard
Jahan is a contemporary painter based in the UK. She creates paintings in response to colour and surfaces, with an attempt to capture the moment and emotion, drawing inspirations from the internal and the external world and on references as broad as from Baroque to Abstract Expressionist art.
Jahan incorporates the use of line and manipulation of colour, which she applies aggressively and in vividly contrasting combinations to her paintings. Jahan has exhibited in several group shows in the UK, France, Spain, and USA. She was included in the John Moores Painting Prize in 2018. Her recent show was held at The Other Art Fair at The Old Truman Brewery in London, 2021.
Website: https://www.jahangerrard.co.uk/
Instagram: @ jahangerrard
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Susie Hamilton
Susie is an English artist who lives and works in London and is represented by Paul Stolper Gallery.
She studied painting at St Martins School of Art and Byam Shaw School of Art in London before reading English Literature at Birkbeck, University of London. She gained a PHd on metamorphosis of identity in Shakespearean drama in 1989 at Birkbeck.
Hamilton’s style has been called ‘iconoclastic’ since her painting is a process of making and unmaking. A member of the painting collective Contemporary British Painting, Hamilton works with Hospital Rooms Arts and Mental Health Charity, painting murals in psychiatric intensive care units, contributing work to their charity auctions and leading workshops online and in hospitals. In 2022 she completed 3 large paintings based on Chinese poetry for the central staircase of the new hospital in Tooting. In 2021 she painted a triptych for Askew psychiatric intensive care unit in Hammersmith, with a filmed interview by Ben Luke as part of the WHO programme, “Healing Arts: The Future is Unwritten”. In 2018, she made ‘Polar Light’, a large wall-painting for ‘The Junipers’ psychiatric unit in Exeter.
In 2020, she made a series of work showing doctors, nurses and patients facing Covid-19, some of which are now held by The Science Museum.
Her paintings are represented in Picturing People by Charlotte Mullins (Thames and Hudson, 2015) and ‘On Margate Sands: PaintIngs and Drawings based on Eliot’s ‘The Waste Land’, 2018. Her paintings are held in public and private collections which include Murderme (the art collection of Damien Hirst), The Priseman Seabrook Collection, The Deutsche Bank Art Collection, The Economist, The Bernard Jacobson Collection, Gaucho Club, New Hall Art Collection University of Cambridge and The Methodist Modern Art Collection, London. In 2015 Hamilton was artist-in-residence at St. Paul’s Cathedral, London.
Hamilton has been called a “flâneur” since she observes from the sidelines, scrutinising tourists, shoppers, holidaymakers, diners, hen nights and other scenes of leisure. She has to work extremely quickly to catch particular movements and poses and this means that her figures are compressed, abbreviated and simplified and usually morph into something misshapen and grotesque. Of her work Hamilton has said “I often wanted to paint joy (as well as its opposite).
Website: http://www.susiehamilton.co.uk/
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David Harsent
David has published nine full collections of poetry and several limited editions, and has received a number of literary awards, including the Eric Gregory Award, the Geoffrey Faber Award, the Cheltenham Festival Prize, two Arts Council Bursaries and a Society of Authors Travel Fellowship. His earlier collection, Legion, won the Forward Prize for best collection 2005 and was shortlisted for both the Whitbread Award and the T.S. Eliot Prize. His Selected Poems was published in June 2007, and was shortlisted for the Griffin International Poetry Prize.
His most recent collection, Night, was Poetry Book Society Choice for Spring 2011, was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize, the Forward Prize and the Costa Prize, and won the Griffin International Poetry Prize. Sprinting from the Graveyard, his English versions of poems written under siege in Sarajevo by the Bosnian poet Goran Simić, have been widely praised, and were
incorporated by Nigel Osborne into his opera Sarajevo as well as forming the basis for radio and TV programmes. In Secret, his English versions of poems by Yannis Ritsos, will appear from Enitharmon Press in October 2012.
Harsent has collaborated with composers (most often with Harrison Birtwistle) on commissions from the Royal Opera House, the Proms, The Nash Ensemble, the Prussia Cove Festival, VARA (Holland), the Aldeburgh Festival, the Aix-enProvence Festival, BBC Radio and Channel 4 TV. Pieces have been performed at ROH, the Royal Albert Hall (Proms), the Concertgebouw, The Megaron (Athens), the South Bank Centre and Carnegie Hall. Gawain and The Woman and the Hare have been issued as CDs, and The Minotaur as a DVD. Several pieces have been performed on radio and television.
David is Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Roehampton and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
Website: https://davidharsent.com/
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Melanie Honebone
Melanie is a Wales-based fine artist. She often works in series; constantly shifting between deconstruction and reconstruction of uncanny 3D forms in an anarchistic melding of artistic disciplines.
As the work evolves, photographs and drawings of her fantastical creations eventually become more important than the sculptural works themselves. The materials of which are inevitably broken down and reused to form the next in the series.
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Jo Hudson
I live and work in Somerset and have been making collage for around 4.5 years.
My work has been included in a couple of collage publications and a piece was chosen by the prestigious Kanyer Art Collection for inclusion in their permanent collection in the USA.
I have sold work to buyers both in the UK and internationally.
You can find me on Instagram @jo_collage.
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Katherine Jones RA
Katherine’ artistic practice is underpinned by drawing and painting, and concluded in multi-layered painterly prints which bring together disparate narratives in hyper-real or folkloric spaces. Perceptions of safety and danger are often described using archetypal motifs such as a house, flower, sun or tree.
After a BA at Cambridge School of Art she completed her MA at Camberwell College of Art in 2003 and is currently a lecturer in Fine Art Printmaking at Middlesex University as well as a visiting lecturer at universities and colleges across the UK. She has been the recipient of numerous awards for her work and has undertaken major residencies including Eton College, Winchester College, Rabley Drawing Centre UK and Kloster Bentlager in Germany.
Jones lives and works in Brixton, South London. Her work is included in international collections including The Victoria and Albert Museum; The House of Lords; Winchester College; Ashmolean Museum; University of Chichester; Royal West of England Academy, Pallant House Gallery UK and Lafayette College, Boston Athenaeum, Wellesley Library, Swarthmore College and Yale University in the US. She is currently working on multiple projects including a commission for Corpus Christi College, Oxford.
Website: https://www.katherine-jones.co.uk/
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Janette Kerr PPEWA HRSA
Janette is a painter deeply embedded in place, working at the interface between land, sea and historical experience. She writes, ‘My paintings represent immediate responses to sound and silences within the landscape around me; they are about movement and the rhythms of sea and wind, swelling and breaking waves, the merging of spray with air, advancing rain and mist, glancing sunlight – elements that seem to be about something intangible.’
Called ‘the best painter of the sea in these islands’ by Brian Fallon, Chief Critic of the Irish Times, Kerr delights in foul weather. Drawn to the perimeters of land, her work is an index of edges and ledges, exposed headlands and wind-swept seas. She writes: ‘My process of making paintings involves extremes and instabilities: peripheries and promontories – places of rapid change and shifts, both physically and meteorologically’.
Kerr is not somebody who makes meticulous studies of landscape. Beyond mere topography, but with a nod towards the Northern Romantic tradition in landscape painting, her practice remains contemporary and experimental. For the last 12 years, her work has focussed on Shetland, where she has a studio and house on the west side, close to the sea.
She travels extensively – always to wild sea and weather-scoured places that look northwards. Working alongside Norwegian oceanographers at the Meteorological Institute in Bergen in 2015, studying the unpredictability of waves and wind, had a profound influence on her work. In 2016 she sailed along the coast of Svalbard in the High Arctic on board a tall ship called the Antigua with a group of international artists. During 2020 she walked in snow storms on an international residency in Skagastrond, NW Iceland.
Kerr has a strong track record of initiating/working collaboratively, in 2017 working with film and sound artist Jo Millett and sound artist Rob Gawthrop to develop Confusing Shadow with Substance, a film and sound installation based on an 18th century haaf fishing station in Shetland, which toured during 2021/22. During covid, they set up the Stenness Sound Walk using GPS technology on the beach at Stenness, Northmavine, in collaboration with the art collective, Satsymph (see also a review by Alastair Hamilton: sound walk technology ).
More recently, in 2022, she received funding from Creative Scotland which enabled her to spend 2 months in Greenland, living in a remote settlement called Oqaatsut, and to initiate a solargraphic community project linking Shetland and Greenland through images and field recordings.
Kerr has a PhD in Fine Art, is an Hon Royal Scottish Academician, RWA Academician, and Past President of the Royal West of England Academy of Art.
Exhibiting regularly across the UK and abroad, her work is held in national and international collections.
Website: https://www.janettekerr.co.uk/
Instagram: @ janettekerrstudio
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Geraldine Leal
BA (Hons) Fine Art: Sculpture
Based in Arundel, West Sussex
My artwork is concerned with materialism, climate change and the human destruction of our planet. It’s often set in a dystopian world.
Website: https://geraldineleal.artweb.com/
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Sir Richard Long CBE, RA
Sir Richard Long studied at the West of England College of Art from 1962 to 1965 and at St. Martin’s School of Art, London from 1966 to 1967. Long wanted to make nature the subject of his work, but in new ways. His first walk-based work was a straight line in a field (1967). Subsequent walks took Long across Dartmoor and Exmoor and enabled him to explore the relationships between time, distance, geography and measurement. These walks were recorded in maps, photographs and text works. Throughout his career Long has explored sculpture as a medium concerned with place as well as material and form. He was knighted in 2018.
Of his own work, the artist has said: “Over the years these sculptures have explored transience, permanence, visibility and recognition. A sculpture may be moved, dispersed or carried. Stones can be used as markers of time or distance, or exist as parts of a huge, yet anonymous, sculpture. On a mountain walk a sculpture could be made above the clouds, perhaps in a remote region, bringing an imaginative freedom about how, or where, art can be made in the world.”
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Tabitha Macbeth
Tabitha is a freelance artist and illustrator, who works from her home studio in Teddington. She graduated from Kingston University in 2008 with a BA (Hons) in Illustration and Animation.
Working primarily with chalk pastels and pencils, she aims to convey a strong sense of feeling and atmosphere. She enjoys the process of storytelling as well as the immediacy of drawing from life. Using surreal elements to communicate a sense of inner life, her work has an ethereal, timeless quality to it.
A broad range of illustration clients have included Oxford University Press, Greenwood Grange, Everything New Academy, Fluid Image, The Dandie Dinmont Terrier Club of Canada, CAMDA (Cheltenham Academy of Music and Dramatic Art) and The Thomas Paine Society.
Tabitha has taken part in exhibitions at several Galleries including Orleans House Gallery in Twickenham, the Riverside Gallery in Richmond and the Nails Gallery in Bristol, as well as the Queen Elizabeth Hall (Southbank Centre), the Haunch of Venison and the Jago Galleries in London. She has been an exhibitor at the Spring, Autumn and Sparkle Art Fairs at the Landmark Arts Centre in Teddington. A permanent mural (created by Tabitha and Nozomi Inoue, a fellow illustrator) can be seen at The Canbury Arms in Kingston Upon Thames.
Website: www.tabithamacbeth.com
Instagram: tabithamacbethart
Facebook: tabithamacbethart
Twitter: tabithamacbeth
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Clare Mackie is a highly accomplished and well established illustrator who has been based in Brighton for the last decade, after 30 years carving a successful career in London.
Her clients have been many and varied including Harvey Nichols, Tatler, Chanel, Trish McEvoy, The New Yorker, Country Life, Good Housekeeping, IBM and BBC to name but a few. She has illustrated over 20 books and was shortlisted for the Greenaway Award for her collaboration with Michael Rosen on his Book of Nonsense. Her portfolio also includes illustrations for adverts, greeting cards, magazines, kitchenware and stationery.
Website: https://www.claremackie.co.uk/
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David Mackintosh
David designs books and other objects, but mostly he enjoys making things and having them printed. He has worked widely in book publishing as a designer and art director, collaborating with authors, illustrators and photographers. David writes and illustrates his own picture books, and illustrates other texts too. His picture books are published in the UK and Europe by HarperCollins, PenguinRandomhouse, and in the US by Abrams.
Website:https://www.profuselyillustrated.com/
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Megan McCubbin
TV Presenter and Zoologist
Megan is a passionate zoologist with a particular interest in behaviour, evolution and the illegal wildlife trade. Her interest stems from a childhood growing up in and around the Isle of Wight Zoo, which specialises in the rescue and rehabilitation of ex-circus and pet trade animals. Having travelled the world from a young age, she became familiar with living in remote areas whilst searching for incredible wildlife. From tracking in the African bush to hiking through the Antarctic continent, Megan has extensive experience working in different climates with an array of species.
Zoologist, Wildlife Rehabilitator and Conservationist
She studied BSc Zoology at the University of Liverpool, and specialised in primate behaviour and conservation. Her final thesis researched the social dynamics and interactions of ring-tailed lemurs in relation to enrichment practices.
Megan has additional experience working in scientific research having spent many months volunteering around the world. Megan worked in China as a behavioural specialist for the charity, Animals Asia, which rescues and rehabilitates bears trapped in the bear bile farming market.
Using her knowledge and experience working with rescued big cats at the Isle of Wight Zoo, she analysed the behaviours of animals recently rescued from dire conditions and aided in their transition to life in a sanctuary. Additionally, she’s spent time volunteering for Africat in Namibia working on big cat conservation and teaching environmental education workshops.
Megan has an innate curiosity about the environment and the wildlife within, especially that of the apex predators and so she decided to spend five months working alongside leading scientists at Bimini Biological Field Station (Sharklab). Here, she aided in the research of different shark species looking to understand their personality traits and general ecology.
In 2020, Megan published her first book with Chris Packham – Back to Nature: How to Love Life and Save It.
Photographer
In 2019, Megan was appointed coordinator and judge of Young Bird Photographer of the Year. She’s been a keen wildlife photographer since she could hold a camera and won the under 12’s RSPCA’s Wildlife Photographer of the Year Award in 2007. She is most well-known for her Antarctic photography.
Website: https://www.meganmccubbin.com/
Instagram: @meganmccubbinwild
Facebook: @MeganMcCubbinWild
Twitter: @MeganMcCubbin
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Ian McNicol
Ian was born in Paisley in 1965. He studied Architecture for 3 years at Glasgow School of Art before changing to Technical Graphics & Illustration (at Glasgow College of Building and Printing). A further 10 years were spent in professional practice with a firm of architects while taking a series of evening classes at the Glasgow Print Studio, where he experimented with screenprinting, lithography and relief techniques, eventually being seduced by the etching process.
The artworks are made using the traditional printmaking technique of etching which involves using steel and copper plates, etched in acids and hand printed on to paper.
Ian currently works at Glasgow Print Studio as Master Printer, Etching Tutor and Technician and regularly works with contemporary artists such as Elizabeth Blackadder, John Byrne and Eileen Cooper.
Barbara Rae RA awarded Ian The Provst James Rae Trust Residency at The Ballinglen Museum & Arts Foundation in Ballycastle, Co Mayo, Ireland, May-June 2022.
He exibits his work widely within the UK (including the Summer Show at the Royal Academy, London 2015, 2017, 2019, 2020, 2022 and 2023) and has his work in collections with Portland Art Museum, Oregon; the Collins Gallery, Beweley’s Hotel, Grasshopper Hotels, the British Council, Edinburgh and the HG Group, Building and Project Managers in Glasgow.
Website: https://www.ianmcnicol.co.uk/
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David Nash OBE RA
David is a British sculptor based in Blaenau Ffestiniog. Nash has worked worldwide with wood, trees and the natural environment.
He studied at Kingston College of Art from 1963 to 1967 and at Chelsea School of Art (Postgraduate) from 1969 to 1970. Nash’s first solo exhibitions were held in 1973 at Queen Elizabeth Hall, York and at Oriel, Bangor, Wales. These rapidly led to a series of solo exhibitions throughout the UK and his international reputation was established after his first solo shows overseas were held in 1980 at Elise Meyer Gallery, New York and at Galleria Cavallino, Venice, Italy. Since then, he has continued to hold solo shows on an annual basis throughout the world.
Nash’s work has also been included in numerous international key group exhibitions since 1970. These include The Condition of Sculpture, at the Hayward Gallery, London (1975), British Art Now: An American Perspective, at the Soloman R Guggenheim Museum, New York and tour (1980), British Sculpture in the Twentieth Century, Part II, at the Whitechapel Art Gallery, London (1981) and Aspects of British Art Today, at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum in (1982).
More recently his work was included in Here and Now, at the Serpentine Gallery, London (1995), Sculptors’ Drawings 1945-90, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York and The Shape of the Century: 100 Years of Sculpture in Britain, at Salisbury Cathedral and Canary Wharf, London (1999). In 2000 his work Cube, Sphere, Pyramid was purchased by the Chantrey Bequest for the nation.
David Nash is represented by Annely Juda Fine Art, London; Galerie LeLong in Paris, Zurich and New York; Galerij S65, Aalst, Belgium; Nishimura Gallery, Tokyo and the Haines Gallery, San Francisco. Nash was elected a Royal Academician in 1999, the same year in which he was appointed a Research Fellow, University of Northumbria, Newcastle and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Art & Design by Kingston University. Nash lives and works in North Wales.
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Diana Nicholls
Diana is a self-taught artist with a great passion for abstract art and a firm believer that everything happens for a reason. Her artwork is the soul-searching journey, the way to express her emotions, thoughts, dreams, joy or fears, the way to escape and feel free.
Diana equally enjoys painting on big canvases with a preference to acrylic mediums or just drawing on white or black paper with a black ink or metallic pen.
Since 2015 Diana has been a member of the Art & Soul group and her artworks have been exhibited in various Art & Soul local exhibitions in Richmond borough.Since September 2016 she has been donating her artworks to our “Secret Art Sale”. Diana lives in Richmond.
Instagram: @diananichollsart
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Farina Noorani
Mixed Media Artist
Farina Noorani creates art under the name ‘Beyond Images Studio’ which is all about her passion for art, architecture and photography.
Inspired by architectural spaces and features, Farina aims to document and preserve the grandeur and memory of historical sites and fascinating architectural landmarks through her artwork. She works with mixed media and freehand sketches, and juxtapose them with original photographs to create one composite images. To her, working on an architectural subject provides a captivating energy, and however freely the watercolours flow and how dramatic the perspectives are, the presence of an underlying geometry and logic always seems to follow, binding them altogether as one.
Farina lives in Milton Keynes and is a resident artist at the Westbury Arts Centre.
Website: www.beyondimagesstudio.co.uk
Instagram: @beyond.images.studio
Facebook: Beyond Images Studio
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John O’Reilly
As a former graffiti artist, my early subjects were of areas I often painted graffiti in, including non-pedestrian environments such as the railway, restricted areas and abandoned sites.
My work continues to consider the urban landscape even further, presenting banal and marginal exterior spaces, monolithic-like environments of asphalt and concrete, of fuel tank farms and car parks, describing pedestrian walks around infrastructures designed to accommodate vehicles.
Website: https://www.johnoreillyart.com/
Instagram: @johnoreillyart
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Peggy O’Sheel
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y, Peggy lived in seven countries in Europe and Africa before the age of 21 when she came to London and settled in 1967. Self-taught, she was drawing and painting from an early age. Nature, humour and visual poems provide the substance of much of her work as well as abstracted expressions of ‘what we don’t know’. Several of her watercolour illustrations are hold by the Bridgeman Art Library and have been published in books.
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Geoff Owens
I am a Wirral based artist who has been exhibited in a number of Galleries in the UK along with other exhibitions in America, France and Germany and been included in a book of international artist 2021 all these details are available via my web site geoffowensart.com. .I use a number of mediums from simple pencil, Watercolour , ink and acrylic depending on the subject matter. .The images I have submitted to Habitats & Heritage are both ink and Watercolour . .I am proud to support Habitats and Heritage and look forward to the coming years supporting this worthwhile charity . .Geoff Owens Art .Web site – geoffowensart.com .Face book- Geoff Owens art
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Les Palin
Born to British parents in India in 1926 he went to England in 1945. In 1956 he enrolled to The Sir John Cass College, where he studied art part-time until 1966.
In 1972 one of his paintings was accepted and hung at The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition; subsequently more of his paintings were accepted to this exhibition.
In 1981 he joined The Saint Albans Art School, where he studied Sculpture and Art for three years. Βetween 1987-1991 he studied Art at the University of Middlesex, where he won twice The Ian Fraser drawing prize. Subsequently he exhibited with considerable success at International Art Consultants , Dockstreet Gallery, and the Llewellyn Lloyd Gallery in Waterloo.
Les Palin’s art is influenced by important Western European painters and sculptors: His watercolours by Turner, Cezanne and Nolde; his oils by Vlamnick, Derain and the German Expressionists; his sculpture by Praxiteles, Phidias and Polycletus.
Les is also a consummate water colourist. His colours – bright, vivid and joyous, evoke the atmosphere and environment of the place, whether it is Cyprus or any other country.
The artist resides in both England and Cyprus and hopes to live in Cyprus for longer periods of time as he is drawn to the light, the warm colours, the landscape, and the generous hospitality of its people.
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Diana Poliak
Studied at Maidstone Art School and West Kent College, University of Greenwich, BA (Hons.) Fine Art.
Fascinated by the designs, patterns, textures and colours of the natural world, and intrigued by those in architecture, old and new. Enjoy experimenting with different media and materials in my workshop Athyrium Atelier in Kent. Have had work selected and exhibited in The Royal Academy Summer Show in 2013, 2016 and 2018.
Website: www.athyrium-atelier.co.uk
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Jonathan Pugh
Pugh’s job as the pocket cartoonist for the Daily Mail, is to scan through the news stories each day and distil these into a series of cartoons – finding the humour, highlighting the absurd – and capturing it all in a few strokes of his pen.
Now from the pen of Pugh, you can enjoy his cartoons beyond the newsprint, and featured on greetings cards, playing cards, prints and originals – all designed to cheer.
Award-winning cartoonist, Pugh, initially studied law, (which presented him with hours of doodling practice…), and then after a brief stint as an art teacher, in 1987 began his career as a freelance cartoonist.
Since then, Pugh’s cartoons have featured in leading newspapers and magazines, including The Guardian, The Independent, The Observer, Punch, Private Eye, PR Week and Country Life. He has also created a weekly cartoon for The Tablet since 1988. Pugh worked for The Times from 1995 until 2010, and since then he has worked as the pocket cartoonist for the Daily Mail.
Website: https://www.pughcartoons.co.uk/
Instagram: @pughcartoons
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Sarah Quayle
I gained a BA Hons in Fine Art in 1986, but after having three daughters and work my life was very busy and painting took a back seat. However, I did find my way back to painting, and I have done work mainly for family and friends. When not working on a specific subject, my paintings usually come from some place in my head which means that style and subject very much depend on my mood and emotions at that moment. I mainly use acrylic, watercolour and ink, and listen to a wide variety of music which also influences how my work evolves
Email: sarahwot@sky.com
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Malcolm Rains
Malcolm Rains was born in Bristol, England in 1947 and grew up in Canada. Rains initially studied architecture at The University of Detroit and The University of Toronto. He later studied art at The Ontario College of Art graduating with a major in sculpture.
For years Rains has devoted himself entirely to painting but his background in architecture and sculpture are perceptible in his still lifes. The artist focuses on a single subject and studies it extensively by creating a number of paintings. This study empowers him to eliminate irrelevant details and render the sole entity of his subjects. Lighting is a very important characteristic of Malcolm Rains work. Reminiscent of the old masters, the warm and precise lighting contribute to the classic quality of his artwork while the minimalist approach to the representation of his objects is utterly modern.
Malcolm Rains’ work is found in many collections, including the Bank of Tokyo, Nabisco and the Xerox Corporation. He has had many solo exhibitions and his sculpture has been exhibited at the most prestigious museums in Canada, the Art Gallery of Ontario and the Winnipeg Art Gallery.
Malcolm lives and works in Toronto, Ontario
Website: https://www.malcolmrains.com/
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Axel Scheffler
Axel is an award-winning, internationally-acclaimed illustrator of some of the most well-loved children’s books. His books have been published in many languages and his work has been exhibited all around the world. He is a Patron of Habitats & Heritage and has greatly supported environmental and other organisations around his Richmond home. He is well known for his illustrations of children’s books, including The Gruffalo, written by Julia Donaldson. He has also authored and illustrated the Pip and Posy series of books for children.
Website: axelscheffler.com
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Karen Smith
Karen studied Textiles and Graphics at college and is currently Artist in Residence at The Lychgate Studio in Truro, Cornwall
Website: www.artbykarensmith.com
Facebook: karensmithartistinresidenceatstclement
Instagram: karen.smith.artist
Twitter: KarenSmitharts
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Susan Spencer Hayter
BA Hons Fine Art Painting, BSc Hons Botany & Zoology
A London painter and printmaker, graduating in Fine Art Painting from Wimbledon School of Art in 2006, but having worked and studied, previously, as a biologist and in education. Current practice combines a passion for the natural world and environmental issues, with artistic concerns, exploring the boundaries between the two.
Exhibiting both here and abroad, works are currently held in both British and international, public and private collections.
The hand-coloured etchings, ‘Yew’ and ‘sorbus’ were both created for the 2023 Habitats & Heritage Secret Art Auction. They are reflections upon the vital role trees play in our environment and current climate crisis, whilst alluding to the long history of Scientific study. Botanical art has not only been a means of recording observations but has also acted as a visual metaphor for the temporality of human life, capturing the fragility of plants in their various forms.
Website: www.susanspencerhayter.co.uk
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Jan Stevens NAPA
Jan Stevens is a contemporary abstract artist and member of National Acrylic Painters Association. Jan has paintings in private collections in London and Europe
She has been selected to exhibit at Royal Watercolour Society Open at Bankside Gallery, NAPA Summer Show at Wells, Chichester and St Ives, Water Street Gallery Todmorden, Orleans Gallery.
Jan in Conversation
‘I love and appreciate wildlife and nature’s green habitats which improve my well being and influences my art. I am inspired by a love of golf, coastal landscapes, a quality-loving creative mother and an engineering fun father. Cornish raised, state-degree-educated, global business wise and South West London living all fuse to celebrate my creativity. As I continue enjoying my life, I find painting to be very freeing, momentary and healthy. Seeing my art on the wall, makes me smile and remember a time well spent.
My abstract art is fluid like water. I use water based paints and prefer acrylics for their range of consistency. I love gestural brush marks to create movement. A depth and floating sensation is made through solid calm and restful shapes. Enjoy.
Website: www.janstevensart.com
Email: jan@janstevensart.com
@janstevensart on social media site
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Anne Swankie
Anne was born in London and has lived there most of her life. She currently lives and works in Richmond but travels widely to seek inspiration.
Her works have sold to collectors around the world. These range from private individuals to commercial collections and historic buildings and private clubs. She has won several awards and has featured in The Artist magazine.
She says “I have always been fascinated by people in everyday situations going about their daily lives. I like to observe people unselfconsciously interacting with each other, perhaps having a drink or a meal or just walking along the street. My obsession with umbrellas shows no sign of abating. There is something about the shape which works well in a composition and I enjoy the way that watery reflections pick up light on the pavement. Whenever it rains, I dash out with my camera – I get quite anxious if there is a long dry spell!”
Anne is represented by John Iddon Fine Art and her work can be seen at various fairs. Just get in touch for information about current exhibitions.
Website: http://anneswankie.com/
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Edit Toaso
Edit is a fine artist who primarily uses refined graphic techniques such as etching, pencil-drawing and mark-making on found objects for her sophisticated, experimental, artworks.
Instagram: @edittoaso
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Estelle Vera
Born in the countryside of Switzerland, I probably felt in love with nature with my first cry. I have always enjoyed the freedom of strolling through the woods, climbing trees, lying in the grass and dreaming into the clouds. It has certainly made a strong impact on my journey.
Also the fact that my mother was painting as already her mother and certainly all the art books in our home had a strong fascination for me. Observing my Mum’s deep concentration on every brush stroke or lingering with the paintings of the old masters, studying the light of a candle or the texture of a medieval carpet kept my attention for hours. Therefore, it became clear very early that it is the way of an artist I have to go.
After five years of study at the Lucerne School of Art and Design I was drawn without hesitation to Italy, where I continued studying painting at the Art Academy of Bologna. It was not just the vibrant atmosphere at the academy, but also the rich Italian culture with its overflowing pot of art history and its joyfulness that influenced my way further and made me develop a more generous attitude towards life itself.
By integrating any suitable media in the context of the respective project, my focus was and is multidisciplinary (EVS). Yet about ten years ago I discovered very surprisingly my love for still life painting and a parallel journey took its way.
At the beginning I just enjoyed the playful approach to the overwhelming abundance of colours, perspectives and patterns. The move to the coast of South England brought new inspirations and the conversation deepened. The subtle colours, the sensitive light and the beauty and fragility of the objects found on my walks along the beaches became once more a dive into silence. As an honouring of simplicity and in a slow process paintings emerge filled with great wonder.
My very current work is mainly focused on the mesmerizing beauty of the beach pebbles. The inspiring encounter of equal simplicity and complexity in each and every beach pebble fills me with awe, – or as Henry David Thoreau put it:
“Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.” (H.D. Thoreau “On the Wisdom and Simplicity of Life”)
However, I hope my deep love for the wonder and beauty in all things and my true passion for painting can be felt in my work…
The work of EVA/EVS is represented in many public and private collections in Germany, England, Italy and Switzerland. Her work has also appeared in numerous publications.
Website: https://www.estellevera.art/
Instagram: @estelleveraart
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Kipper Williams
From a central London studio, Kipper Williams draws for newspapers, magazines, audio visual presentations and greetings cards. He has provided drawings for a number of books, most recently Bill Bryson’s ‘A Short History of Nearly Everything’ (illustrated edition), Dr Tanya Byron’s ‘Your Child, Your Way’ and Graham Jones’ ‘Strange Requests and Comic Tales from Record Shops’. For the last three years his poster cartoon for the charity Contact The Elderly has become a regular feature on the London Underground.
With one-man shows at the Hay Festival, the Adam Street Gallery and the Cartoon Gallery, Kipper has featured in mixed exhibitions at the Duchamp at Herne Bay Festival, the Chris Beetles Gallery, the Shrewsbury Cartoon Festival and the London Cartoon Museum. His cartoons have been acquired by the British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Cartoon Art Trust. Private collectors include David Starkey, Jeremy Paxman, the Duke of Devonshire and Tina Turner. In 2010, he won the Duval Foundation Award at the ‘Chopin’s Smile’ exhibition held at the Muzeum Karykatury in Warsaw and in 2013 he was presented with the Joke Cartoonist Award by The Cartoon Art Trust. In 2014, Kipper was the Official Cartoonist for the Port Eliot Festival.
CLIENTS: The Guardian, the Sunday Times, the Spectator, Private Eye, Country Life, John Lewis Gazette, Broadcast, Engineering and Technology, Radio Times, Coaching at Work….
COMMISSIONING CARTOONS AND BUYING ARTWORK: Kipper draws personalised cartoons, cards and caricatures for birthdays, leaving dos, business events, graduation etc. He produces a selection of rough drawings based on information or images sent. Once the best solution is agreed, he produces the final artwork.
Website: http://www.kipperwilliams.com/
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Richard Wilson RA
Richard Wilson, born 1953, is one of Britain’s most renowned sculptors. He is internationally celebrated for his interventions in architectural space which draw heavily for their inspiration from the worlds of engineering and construction.
Wilson has exhibited widely nationally and internationally for over thirty years and has made major museum exhibitions and public works in countries as diverse as Japan, USA, Brazil, Mexico, Russia, Australia and numerous countries throughout Europe. Wilson has also represented Britain in the Sydney, Sao Paulo, Venice and Aperto Biennial and the Yokohama Triennal, was nominated for the Turner Prize on two occasions and was awarded the prestigious DAAD residency in Berlin 1992/3. He was one of a select number of artists invited to create a major public work for The Millennium Dome and the only British artist invited to participate in Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennial 2000, Japan.
Wilson’s projects have generated universal critical acclaim. Wilson’s seminal installation 20:50, a sea of reflective sump oil, formerly in the Saatchi Collection and now permanently installed at Mona in Tasmania, was described as ‘one of the masterpieces of the modern age’ by the art critic Andrew Graham Dixon in the BBC television series The History of British Art.
Wilson was in 2004 appointed Visiting Research Professor at the University of East London; and at Tate Publishing as part of their British Artist Series books, launched in October 2005, Richard Wilson by Simon Morrissey. In 2006 he was elected as a member of the Royal Academy and in 2008 was awarded an Honorary Doctorate at the University of Middlesex.
Wilson’s commissioned contribution to Liverpool’s European Capital of Culture, 2008, entitled Turning the Place Over, comprised a vast ovoid section of a façade that rotated three dimensionally on a spindle. His regional cultural Olympic exhibition, Hang on a Minute Lads, I’ve got a Great Idea, at the De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill 2012 had a hydraulically teetering replica coach (The Italian Job) positioned at the edge of the building’s roof. He opened Slipstream, a major commission for Heathrow’s Terminal 2 in April 2014, and in 2017 a major solo show at Annely Juda Gallery in London, entitled Stealing Space.
Website: https://www.richardwilsonsculptor.com/
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Levison Wood is a world renowned explorer, writer & photographer who has written eleven best-selling books and produced several critically acclaimed documentaries which have been aired around the globe.
He has travelled and filmed in over one hundred countries worldwide, and his expeditions include walking the length of the river Nile, the Himalayas, all of central America and circumnavigating the Arabian Peninsula. His most recent project followed the migration and conservation of elephants in Botswana.
Levison spent a number of years as a Regular Officer in the British Parachute Regiment, where he served in Afghanistan fighting against Taliban insurgents in Helmand and Kandahar. His military services has seen him deploy on operations and exercises on five continents.
He has interviewed and photographed some of the most prominent names in the international community, from Hollywood actor George Clooney to travel writer Paul Theroux and His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
He is an elected Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, the Explorers Club, Honorary Doctor at Staffordshire University & an ambassador of Unicef and for a number of other charities. When not abroad Lev lives in London.
Website: http://www.levisonwood.com/
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Nicola Woods
Nicola is a hobby artist from North Yorkshire. She uses a variety of medium for her work and likes to experiment with texture to give her pieces some depth. She loves nature and takes inspiration from her surroundings and incorporate the colours and shapes she sees into her art.
As well as producing physical artwork, Nicola also creates digital art pieces. These graphics are mainly used on t shirts, bags and stationary items.
Please do take a look at Nicola’s social media pages at @woodsartcrafts and @woodsartcraftsdigitial. Her email address is woodsartcrafts@gmail.com.
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Simon Wright
British artist Simon Wright was born in Yorkshire in 1974. Fuelled with the passion for creating art his entire life, Wright started his artistic career with a degree in illustration. Enjoying working as a professional illustrator, Simon relished being able to earn a living from his talent. Not quite content with the precisely controlled style of painting this work demanded, he began to develop a much looser spontaneous style. In the same way, the 20th-century impressionists allowed colour to form the structure of their art Simon began to revisit famous urban landscapes in an entirely new way. Without any technical restraints, Simon began to forge landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower and the Palace of Westminster from just the layering of shadows with colour. Utilising just a few tones Simon would create the impressionistic scene before ‘dribbling’ on the thick structure of the painting. From this point he describes a battle between the layered shadows and the raised structural lines for dominance:
“By having a focal point like the Eiffel Tower or Westminster, I’m trying to have the viewer know instantly where they are in the world, but I don’t want that to be the dominant aspect of the piece. I want the painting to speak for itself and the feeling of the city to be portrayed to the viewer.”
Website: https://www.simonwrightartist.com/
Instagram: @ simonwright.artist
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All artists generously contributing to the Secret Art Auction 2023:

THANK YOU!

On this page: Artists’ biographies.
See the Gallery of works submitted to the Secret Art Auction 2023