Frank Triggs

FREEZE08JAN-01MAR

WWW.WILLOWARTGALLERY.CO.UK

FREEZE

08 Jan - 01 Mar 2011

The rich diversity and talent of Shropshire arsts is reflected in ourwinter exhibion FREEZE opening at The Willow Gallery on 8th January 2011. The journey of The Willow connues from it'srecent incepon to our second and equally excing display ofpainngs and ceramics.

The start of this new year brings together a collecon of arsts that ooffer contrasng insights and experiences through form. Highlytextural, gently smooth, bold palees of colour that invest your imaginaon with wishes and dreams and offer space for thoughtand reflecon. We hope very much that you will come and sharethese wonderful works with us.

Graham Cox

Janie McLeod

Peter Edwards

Victoria Millington

Barbara Goolden

Bridget McLaren

Joshua BJoshua Bowe

Frank Triggs

George Triggs

Jacqui Atkin

Chris Mills

Stephen Eisenstein

Vidal & Company

Jacqui Atkin

I am best known for my burnished, smoke and resist Raku fired forms but I have recently been exploring alternave surface treatments which ulise the samethemes for decoraon without the extreme firing process.

Making methods depend on the shape and size of thefform I am working on but can oen combine techniques– thrown with hand built addions – coiled with slabbedor pinched addions etc. Much of the work is vessel based but also includes abstract sculptural forms.

Inspiraon for form and paern is drawn from everything but most essenally from my garden and the woodland environment surrounding my home and home and studio in rural Shropshire, close to the Welsh border

Joshua Bowe Highly accomplished in its deployment of various

materials and techniques, Josh Bowe’s work, although primarily figurave, nonetheless represents an on-goinginvesgaon into the fundamentals of representaonand abstracon. At once complex and intuive, his painngs combine form, colour and texture to createa a strong sense of vigour and dynamism, the contrasngfigurave and abstract pictorial elements smulang the viewer to see familiar subjects in fresh andchallenging ways. Moreover, by staying faithful to well-established aesthec principles, Josh Bowe’simage-making pulls off that all too elusive balancing act between innovaon and accessibility, endowing hiswork with work with exceponal intellectual and visual appeal.

Graham Cox

Graham Cox was born in Castleford, West Yorkshirein 1954. He first studied art at Wakefield College of Art in 1973 before progressing to, what is now, Manchester Metropolitan University. There, he obtained a BA Hons and an MA in Fine Art along with a Post Graduate Cerficate in Educaon.

‘‘At a certain moment, the canvas begins to appear as an arena in which to act – rather than a space inwhich to reproduce, re-design, analyze or ‘express’ an object actual or imagined. What goes onto thecanvas is not a picture but an event.’ Harold Rosenberg

‘Through the process of painng I aempt to recordand document such an event.’ Graham Cox

Stephen Eisenstein Stephen Eisenstein was appointed Consultant Spine

Surgeon in Oswestry, 1985, to follow the resignaonof John O’Brien. He took up stained glass as a hobby, trained at Wrexham College of Art and design.Stephen rered from NHS 2005, but connued in private pracce, spinal disorders, including contractsusurgery for NHS.

Four achievements:-

1. The Sir Robert Jones Medal and Prize 1976, Brish Orthopedic Associaon, for essay on Spinal Stenosis.2. Co-authorship of the Oswestry Disability Index(ODI), 1976, now used worldwide for a variety of spinal disorders research.3. Appoi3. Appointed Hon. Professor, Keele University, Staffordshire, 1975.4. Membership of the Brish Society of Master Glass Painters.

Peter Edwards

Born in Wales and currently living in Oswestry, Peter Edwards is one of the country's most notableportrait arsts. Several of the arst’s works areowned by the Naonal Portrait Gallery as part of its permanent collecon, and his work is also partof the collecon at 10 Downing Street.

One of the moOne of the most important landmarks in his career was his painng of The Liverpool Poets, AdrianHenri, Roger McGough and Brian Paen which wasa prize winning entry in 1985 Portrait Awards. The painng was subsequently bought by the Naonal Portrait Gallery and led to a major one-man show Contemporary Poets’ in 1990.

MaMany major commissions followed which included famous names such as Sir Bobby Charlton, Willy Russell, Michael Winner and John Cleese.

Barbara Goolden

I have always painted, it has been a very important partof my life. I grew up in North Wales and have spent mylife trying to capture the mood of the mountains andthe sea.

I love the landscape and want to be part of it, painng on site whatever the weather, occasionally working athome from shome from sketches done on the spot. My best work is usually done in the open air with my subject feeling part of the place. I am fascinated by the meless quality ofNorth Wales, the solidarity of the rocks that have beenthere and will there forever over the fragility of manand manmade structures. I have been painng and drawing all my life. I couldn’t do without it. It has kept me sane in this changing world. Nme sane in this changing world. Now I can go a lile mad and pursue my passion.

I have exhibited in North Wales, Cardiff, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Cheshire and the North West.

Bridget McLaren

Bridget McLaren is a former teacher who was born and raised in the Oswestry area. She studied art in Liverpool during the 1960s under John Heritage (lateDean of Wrexham Art School). She has since workedin a variety of styles.

Much of her current work is a response to personal and global and global mythology; in parcular to the concept of archetypes. Through her working process, emergent archetypal figures and mofs are oen facilitated, expressions perhaps of a collecve consciousness that embraces both the perceivedand observed. The funcon of the work is to alludeto, rather than define, the universality of internal and and external worlds.

Janie McLeod I was born in Slough Bucks, but raised in South Wales.

I have childhood memories of the windswept sandybeaches of Porthcawl. I aended Camberwell School of Arts and Cras London, between 1973/76. FollowingCamberwell I lived in Southern Ireland for a few yearsthen the Middle East and a few other places in between.

My work derives much from landsMy work derives much from landscape and also fromthe edge of the land ’between the woods and the water’ Essenally abstracted using oil paint/pastel and graphite on canvas, I can work quickly using gesture and line to create dynamic images which evoke a senseof me and place in a very inmate way. I also love theact of drawing as a very primal acvity and the ccomplexity of printmaking. Mixed media as a procees of construcng and deconstrucng an image now interests me great deal as does making small sculptures/construcons out of plasc/acrylic.

Victoria Millington

I was born in Crimea, the diamond-shaped peninsulathat juts out into the Black Sea and is one of the mostbeauful regions of the world. As a child I studied Ballet and I went further to study Ballet and Choreography in the University of Performing Arts in Russia. But as long as I remember I always wanted topaipaint... So here I am...

My art inspired by Realism, painted in Impressionisc style and my biggest inspiraon comes from Russian, then Soviet, Realism and Impressionism. I fascinated by seemingly uncomplicated, broadly painted realiscimages with astounding vitality produced by arsts ofRussian/Soviet School of last century. I am a self-taughtararst, although in 2009 I studied fine art at Art School of Shrewsbury College (Shropshire, UK) and finished it with disncon, I'm sll on the learning curve which,I guess, is a lifelong journey.

Frank Triggs

Frank has in recent years worked almost exclusively to commission. Carving for furniture makers and architects, for corporate and private clients and local authories, zoos and hospitals. Before moving to Oswestry 31 years ago to help his partner Anna found her pioneering organic market garden, his work was work was connected with play and early learning.He carried out research into how movement and spaal understanding influence intellectual development, working with children and adults suffering brain and limb trauma and congenital problems. His work as a gardener and on land surveys have also had a strong influence on him and as is probably o and as is probably obvious he is in love with wood as a material. Hand carving,turning. 3D roung, laminang, sand blasng, dyeing, chain sawing, he uses them all but has no favorite method of creaon. The idea should be supported by the process to create the image.

George Triggs

Born in Oswestry, Shropshire aged 28, George Triggs works from a South London Studio to create figuraveworks of great depth, beauty and meaning.

"My pieces speak individually, but, as an arst, I'm interested in confronng and exploring emoons with my sculptures as well as asking quesons aboutsocisociety and one's place in the world. I endeavour to disl my concepts to a point where clarity and truth emerge, the viewer drawn into the complexity aswell as the purity and essence of my creaons.

In life we tend to grasp at happiness: glimpse clarity and find purpose through life's most severe trials. The hope and inner spirit that pulls us through is paramouparamount to me: it is a quality I try to capture in thelife of each sculpture, along with the realisaon that these moments change us, claim parts of us and define who and what we are."

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