On Sunday May 30th the Trust is very excited to welcome several local artists to showcase their work in the atmosperic environment of Landbeach tithe barn. The exhibition is free to everyone and runs between 11.00 and 4.00 (https://tithebarntrust.org.uk/learning/2021-events/). The artists are profiled below. All are members of, or associated with, the Cambridge Drawing Society.

The Society is believed to be one of the oldest of its kind in the UK, having been founded in 1882. Throughout its long history the society has fostered the aims of its founding members, “To encourage the arts of drawing, painting, printmaking and sculpture in Cambridge and district and to promote exhibitions of members’ work”.  The Society currently has 180 members, both amateur and professional artists. 

Exhibiting Artists

Maureen Mace (Painter & Print-maker / Cambridge)

Maureen’s paintings are about colour, detail and ideas. They tell stories that can be magical and surreal. Cambridge is her home and a huge influence on her work. She loves the beautiful, historic city with its wide, open spaces, great architectural buildings, old university traditions and, of course, its cows. Maureen adds into her works rich night skies and shining moons. Her taste for Medieval manuscripts and tapestries forms the basis for these intricate, dream-like paintings.

https://www.maureenmace.co.uk

http://www.instagram.com/maureenmaceart

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Tracey Ashman (Printmaker / Cottenham) – I have practiced printmaking for a decade and as a printmaker, my creativity is limitless. Printmaking processes and techniques can be combined, which provides an endless artistic journey, practising an art form that constantly inspires. My preferred printmaking techniques are mono-printing, silkscreen and linocuts.  
I’m inspired by form, line, colour and texture, and my prints are informed by a fascination with nature, both home and abroad.  My recent print projects have been inspired by an abiding interest in textiles, which comes from my childhood legacy left to me by my mother. I spent many hours in her sewing room, where I was taught to sew and knit at the age of five. I have begun to incorporate stitch into my printmaking processes; the texture and form of stitch, both hand and machine, creates beautiful, unexpected marks. Cotton is now my prefered drawing medium to create line and texture in my prints, and paper is the perfect medium for capturing the beauty of the mark. 

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Ann Biggs (Painter & Illustrator / Haddenham) – I trained in the 1970’s and worked as a professional illustrator ever since.  I have worked with educational publishers specialising in Natural History for schools, also taking on commissioned work with private customers. 

Nowadays I take on private commissions, as well as running workshops for various art groups and Haddenham Arts Centre. I focus on subjects such portraits of pets, children, people’s houses as well as my first love, painting wildlife of all shapes and sizes. 

I work from a studio at Haddenham Arts Centre near Ely, Cambs and welcome visitors to my studio where I sell cards, prints and original paintings. 

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Rob Ellis (Painter / Cottenham) – I am a figurative painter and I paint rather precisely using transparent watercolours – “pure watercolour”.  I like to mix my paints on a palette and to decide exactly where and how to put them on the paper to achieve my aims.  I first learned the trick of drawing what I could see around me during school holidays some sixty years ago but after that I never studied art and very rarely drew or painted anything. Then, in 2017, I started painting and drawing seriously and have devoted considerable time to it over the last few years. I am particularly interested in working out how best to replicate different textures and the effect of light on them.  I see each new painting as a technical challenge rather than an expression of my passions.  

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Iona Howard (Printmaker / Cottenham) – My prints use figuration and abstraction to portray the landscape of places I know well. The sources can come from working en plein air or expressing landscape filtered through memory. The physicality of my approach to the printing process combined with a contemplative exploration of surface makes the subject spontaneous and vibrant whilst capturing an intimate connection with the landscape.  

I have lived on the Fen Edge near Cambridge for the last twenty years and the focus of my work is the meeting point of land, horizon and sky, their flatness altering the perception of distance. My prints have gradually evolved from monochromatic studies by introducing colour to reflect the Fens’ ever-changing mood and light.  

My monochromatic work has developed in parallel to this as a result of my three-year collaboration with the 2017 Fenland Poet Laureate, Kate Caoimhe Arthur. Our work explores the concept of the sublime, the senses of home and alienation in a humanly fabricated natural space, and the precarious relationship between the ecological and the human. From these early walks in the spring of 2017, our collaboration has since taken a variety of forms: staging talks and exhibitions, sound recording and creating numerous prints and poems.  

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Christine Lockwood (Painter / Fen Drayton) – Ever since I can remember I have always loved messing about with paints.

I live in the small village of Fen Drayton in Cambridgeshire, working in a lovely light sunny studio where I can concentrate on my love of watercolour painting. I have a passion for colour, the luminosity & vibrancy is reflected in my work. I love to let the colours blend & mix together on the watercolour paper giving that element of surprise & looseness.

Flowers have always been inspirational for me. You will often find me with a sketchpad and camera in the garden on bright sunny days capturing the vibrant petals of the Delphiniums & Hollyhocks or the bees on the Echinacea. These are the perfect subject matter for my paintings. I also enjoy painting landscapes, particularly around the nature reserve where I live and trips to Cornwall, Scotland, Wales & France have all provided me with a wealth of inspiration for me to explore, sketch and paint.

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http://www.instagram.com/maureenmaceart

Rita Morton (Printmaker / Bourn) –
 My work spans drawing, illustration and printmaking. On returning to England in 2009, I revived my printmaking skills, primarily through lino and silkscreen. My art derives from my sense of place, predominantly where the man-made harmonises with the natural environment. I am inspired by the imagery, techniques and colours of Japanese prints, especially in a favourite subject of mine, water reflections.

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Giulia Quaresima (Painter / Fen Ditton) – Giulia Quaresima is an Italian figurative artist and portrait painter.

The women’s universe is the main theme of her painting season: the relentless passage of time, the laceration of abandonment, the fascinating moment of conception are the subjects on which she reflects. She uses painting to analyse our fears and hopes, and her works do not hide behind intellectual games. The artist believes that her works can show her love for tradition and her respect for the craft, because, in her opinion, modernity should be find through the old rule of art. She is very faithful to the “poetic of realism” with which she carries on her own idea of reality.

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Paul Rodhouse (Painter / Burwell) – As a youngster, I was fascinated by both art and natural history and followed a career in biological oceanography.  More than 30 years on, inspired by a visit to the Mystic Seaport Museum in Connecticut, I dug out the brushes and palette of my school days and started painting again.   

I largely use oils and I mostly paint marine and polar subjects, the wildlife, the seascapes and icescapes that have been such an important part of my life.  Starting to paint again was a challenge, but the possibility of having work accepted by the Cambridge Drawing Society provided an incentive.  Becoming a member has encouraged me to develop my skills and artistic imagination. 

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Alice Thomson (Multimedia Artist / Girton) – My work has developed as ‘reportage’ drawing directly and spontaneously from life. I  carry a sketchbook and camera constantly with me, and I aim to capture a place and its essence. I use effortless but sensitive use of line, mark making and color with an expressive quality.

Experimenting with different techniques and materials with no strict rules, I enjoy looking for new and surprising effects. I work in a combination of collage, ink, printing, crayons and paints, (gouache oil and acrilic) sticks and pencils to add layers to add interest to my compositions until it feels complete. My work speaks of the sense of places.

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