Private View: Wednesday 4th July 6.30 – 8.30pm

Meet the artist: 5th &12th July 4 – 6pm

Closing Event : 12th 6.30 – 8.30pm

Studio 106 Art Gallery is delighted to announce an exhibition by artists from Putney School of Art and Design. The show is suitably titled 481/8 after the eight exhibiting students and their four hundred and eighty one years combined experience. This is the first time that the annual exhibition has been held at Studio 106 Art Gallery and it will provide an exciting platform for the Putney graduates.

Visitors to the exhibition will have the opportunity to see an eclectic mix of creative ideas, styles and techniques with ceramics, etchings, experimental media, and oils among the works on show. The eight artists represented in the exhibition are – RosieCopeland, Debbie Flatt, Clare Frankl, Margaret Gettens, Zohreh Paykani, Pat Rhodes, Chrissie Soames and Sally Shillito.

Diploma Course director, Jan Malaszek comments -

“This promises to be an accomplished and thought-provoking show and represents the culmination of a two year fine art course during which the students have gradually developed their own artistic personalities and are ready to step forward into the limelight of their first group exhibition.”

Artist Statements

Rosie Copeland has lived in London for nearly 20 years.  However, in this exhibition Rosie has returned to her roots with the views and landscapes around her childhood home in Oxfordshire providing the inspiration for her work.  Memories, an emotional and physical attachment to place and the passage of time are themes she explores in her paintings.

Debbie Flatt has been painting and working in experimental media for many years, exhibiting and selling works on paper.  Since finishing work as a psychotherapist two years ago she has had the freedom to develop her work and ideas through the Diploma course and the opportunity to focus on etching.

Clare Frankl has recently moved from running her own architectural practice back to her first love, ceramics.  Triggered by an increasing desire to have a hand-on engagement with the stuff of making, her work seeks to use memory, strengths and vulnerabilities of clay to embody ideas of place and displacement through linked groups of vessels.

Margaret Gettens brings a passion for colour and light to her work centred on the erosion of the North Norfolk coastline and the tenuous relationship between man and nature.  The works are a tribute to her father who died in Norfolk last summer and reflect his love of sea and countryside.  Margaret will continue her studies after the Diploma at Nottingham University.

Zohreh Paykani.  Her experience with watercolours is sufficient to allow her to enjoy using colours with lots of water to produce impulsive marks.  Listening to music gives her the excitement and motivation to paint the emotion and movements as she hears it and sees the colours. Spontaneous sketches are initially in watercolour, which are then painted in different media and surfaces.

Pat Rhodes.  After a career in teaching Pat decided to return to her interest in art and design before it was too late.  Her work centres on the use of logos and branding to promote religious and secular icons using ceramics to explore the theme.

Sally Shillito  has always liked life drawing and portraiture, and has lately become interested in painting trees and trying to express the different atmospheres they create.  The ongoing sale of the old family house in the countryside, surrounded by trees past and present and a large rambling garden, has given a new depth and scope to this project.

Chrissie Soames.  Having experienced working life in central London in the colourful 1960’s as a window dresser and freelance photographer, Chrissie has chosen to explore an earlier darker era.  Her work draws on her memories of childhood spent in Pimlico in the 1950’s.  She has used personally evocative images and sounds from those formative years to illustrate a cathartic journey into her past.

Putney School of Art and Design offers high quality learning opportunities in the visual arts.  It seeks to enable students to realise their creative potential in a flexible way, enabling them to fruitfully progress as artists. The Art and Design Diploma provides specialist, structured study for students of contemporary fine art. Whilst giving a grounding in the core elements of fine art and design practice, the course encourages experimentation and allows for the exploration of a range of media and approaches, giving students the opportunity to develop their interests and their artistic “voice”.