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Tim Saunders
Saudi Gazette
Eight established artists from across the UK exhibit their paintings at Rose Theatre, Kingston from January 26 to March 5, 2016.
This is the result of an exciting collaboration between the theatre and Creative Coverage, which represents selected professional artists.
The exhibition features the work of: Jeffery Courtney, Mike Sofroniou, Jonathan Mitchell, Mark McLaughlin, Roy Mackintosh, Susie Lidstone, Marilyn Kernoff and Iain White.
“I am looking forward to welcoming these talented artists to the Rose Theatre,” says theatre manager Lesley Rowden.
The exhibition will be in the café, bars and foyers. Opening times will be 10am to 6pm Monday to Saturday and evenings on performance days.
Jeffery Courtney (Oxford)
Jeffery Courtney trained at the Royal Academy Schools. He has been a professional painter all his life. He has made extensive studies of a wide variety of painting techniques. In his work he tries to paint the light and atmosphere of places, people and things, but also tries to capture something of that unseen beauty or harmony that lies behind the physical form and which gives to all things their sense of being. Jeffery regularly exhibits at Art in Action festival in July in Oxfordshire. He has had several one man shows and has work in many private collections. He has painted portraits for the Royal Engineers and Livery companies and was commissioned to produce some works for the Chelsea & Westminster Hospital. He has worked on large scale murals in England and Italy. He lectures on art and also teaches.
Mike Sofroniou (Warwickshire)
Michael Sofroniou trained at Wimbledon and Camberwell School of Art and has painted professionally since 1986. His work is inspired by light and colour and he is interested in the territory between abstraction and reality. “My work is usually based on direct observation,” says Michael. “I either work immediately in front of a subject or from drawings and studies done on the spot. Colour, shape and pattern arise as a visual interpretation of the subject. A painting may be worked and reworked to incorporate changes of mood, light and atmosphere until the piece takes on its own life or it may be produced in a single session as an immediate response to a moment in time.”
Jonathan Mitchell (Scotland)
Scotland based Jonathan Mitchell studied at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art attaining a BA (Hons) Fine Art in 1990. He was awarded The Pat Holms Memorial Prize for Drawing in 1987. While exhibiting primarily in Scotland, Jonathan’s detailed and atmospheric paintings of rural and urban Britain feature in private and corporate collections throughout the UK and internationally. Several high profile publishing projects have also facilitated the spread of his work to an international audience (including collaborations with distillers Mathew Gloag and Sons in 1994, and with Sir Jackie Stewart OBE in 2013). “My aim is to show my work to a much greater extent outside Scotland,” he says.
Mark McLaughlin (London)
The paintings of London based Mark McLaughlin represent a fascination to record and capture everyday scenes using the revelations of light and atmosphere, throughout the seasons of the year. A 20-year career as an illustrator saw Mark produce illustrations for book publishers, magazines and newspapers including The Sunday Express. His commissions of watercolour paintings of clients’ homes and well-known establishments include Westminster Abbey and Marlborough College. Based at Clockwork Studios in Camberwell, South London, Mark divides his time between oil painting and client commissions. “It’s a personal passion to create paintings that reflect a moment in a day - raising these simple subjects to beautifully depicted atmospheric statements,” says Mark. Collectors include the Sultan of Brunei; Herbert Kretzmer, lyricist of “Les Miserables”; Count Bernadotte of Sweden and the headmaster of the Westminster Abbey Choir School.
Roy Mackintosh (Surrey)
Roy specialises in landscape and seascape painting in oils upon canvas with typical original measurements of 36” by 24” (some 90cms x 60 cms). For the last 10 years Roy has focused upon scenes in Britain, although in the past he has held dedicated exhibitions upon sponsored tours of Italy and Australia. Additionally, Roy has held exhibitions where scenes in Norway, Singapore and Zimbabwe have featured predominantly. In his teens Roy had ready access to the Tate Gallery, when the Clore Extension was being built, as well as to Kenwood House in the days when the Rembrandts and Turners were not yet hidden behind glass. When inspiration is available at two inches from one’s nose, there is no surprise in guessing Roy’s favourite past masters. During the next year Roy will be focussing upon scenes of Dorset, the Cairngorms, Staffordshire and Derbyshire, and England’s south coast. Roy is married to Lorna and they are based in Thames Ditton by the river.
Susie Lidstone (Surrey)
Susie Lidstone is well-known for her botanical watercolours. An elected and exhibiting member of The Society of Floral Painters, she has a Fine Art Printmaking degree. Her own range of greetings cards and limited edition prints are widely available. She is regularly commissioned to produce paintings of properties. Susie’s projects for children have been very successful and are available in kit form at an online children’s store. Since her childhood she has admired the artist Elizabeth Blackadder and has had the pleasure of exhibiting alongside her. Susie is an elected member of The Society of Architectural Illustrators.
Marilyn Kernoff (London)
Born in South Africa Marilyn Kernoff moved to London in the 1970s. She began developing her career as an artist 15 years ago while working as a psychotherapist. Marilyn’s passion and aptitude for landscapes and portraiture grew rapidly. Her roots in Africa and her subsequent experience living in the UK profoundly influence her semi-abstract landscape work. Equally, her experience of working with people over many years inevitably informs and influences her portraiture. She works almost entirely in oils and, after a period of serious illness in recent years, her career as an artist has become her predominant professional focus. “I strive to convey the essential qualities and mood evoked by places, people and objects of beauty I have experienced,” she says. Her work has been selected for group shows, such as The Discerning Eye Exhibition at the Mall Galleries, and she held her first solo exhibition at Corman Arts Gallery, London, in May 2011 with some considerable success. Since then she has had three more solo shows, the most recent being at The Bleddfa Centre, Wales, in 2014. She is currently drawn to environments which embody peace and spaciousness.
Iain White (Surrey)
Surrey based Iain White has been painting for over 25 years. “I have concentrated on the portrait as for me the face is the most universal subject to paint, something that everyone can relate to regardless of time, place or culture,” he says. “Working from photographs helps me to keep the immediacy and subtlety of a moment’s expression. The painting develops from there and hopefully still retains an essential honesty and character. Most of my portraits are acrylic on canvas but I also use pastel and conte on paper. I mainly use a limited palette and keep the backgrounds simple so that the focus is on the face.”
