ARTISTS information

Rachael Kantaris is a full-time artist / printmaker living and working in St. Ives, Cornwall. She was strongly involved in the setting up of, and the daily running of the Porthmeor Print Workshop, where she is currently based. From here she supplies work to galleries throughout Europe and teaches at various places, including the Tate Gallery and the St. Ives School of Painting.Rachael was born in Brisbane and after obtaining a Foundation Diploma in Art and Design at Falmouth School of Art, studied for her B.A. and M.A. at Brighton University. Since then she has travelled widely, and has worked as artist in residence in studios in Berlin and Melbourne. In 1997 she was invited by The British Council to be the main exhibitor in an exhibition of British contemporary printmaking which she took to Manila, and whilst there she taught a series of workshops at The University of the Philippines.  
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"My work is driven by a fascination for colour. I want the viewer to be seduced and drawn into the piece, and for there to be a sense of movement in which the colours resonate. Etching is a very physical medium, often involving quite textured and deeply embossed areas, and I use and explore this sculptural quality in my work.
I like the contradiction between the craft of working with the metal, and the very painterly image which I aim to achieve on the paper. Above all I love the richness of etching - it has an almost sumptuous quality - a soft, velvety surface texture unique to this medium." - Rachael Kantaris 

Luke Frost, the son of Anthony Frost and grandson of Sir Terry Frost. Luke lives and works in Penzance, UK. He has exhibited widely since graduating from Bath Spa University College in 1998.
Luke participated in the ‘Art Now Cornwall’ exhibition at Tate St Ives in 2007. He was also Artist in Residence at Tate St Ives for a year during 2008 followed by a solo exhibition in the gallery in early 2009.

Ashley Hanson is a renowned colourist and landscape artist whose  work has been selected for the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, the Discerning Eye and the National Open Art Competition.  He has exhibited widely, both nationally and internationally and in 2014 was elected a member of the Newlyn Society of Artists.
The Cornish coastal landscape with its beguiling mix of the natural and the man made has provided inspiration for many of Ashley’s paintings.  His striking, multi-layered canvases pulsate with colour and capture the essence of the harbour towns of Cornwall both from the air and on the ground.
He has also made many paintings about his journeys around the USA, after being awarded a Boise Travel Scholarship from the Slade School of Art and for the past 3 years has been  working on his ‘City of Glass’ series inspired by the novel ‘The New York Trilogy’ by Paul Auster.
An experienced teacher including Visiting Lecturer at Canterbury Christchurch University and the National Academy of Art Bergen, Ashley has been running his own workshops and  ‘Freedom in Painting’ holidays in Cornwall for the past 5 years.
‘I believe that as artists we must always look forward, beyond what we know. Building on our skills and techniques, I enjoy helping and encouraging students/artists to explore and invent and find their own personal interpretation of the landscape.’

 

  Sara graduated from West Surrey College of Art and Design in the late 1970's and went on to complete a 'Post Graduate Certificate in Art and Design Education' in 1980.  Sara became involved in the London animation scene and freelanced for many of the leading animation studios producing Commericals, TV idents and films, before setting up an animation company with her partner and husband Simon. After many years of producing award winning children's animated TV series such as 'Wolves Witches and Giants', 'Grizzly Tales' and 'Binka', Sara returned to her fine art roots and in 2007 gained an MA in Art and Design.
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Sara has lived and worked in Devon for over 20 years and is drawn to the remote beauty of the landscape and coast. Her work is an intuitive response to this environment, in particular the coast of Cornwall and Devon. Through an exploration of colour and mark making the work articulates the  mood, atmosphere and energy of the subject matter and reflects on ever changing light created by the effects of the weather.
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Sara works in oils, building up layers of paint and creating different textures using a variety of tools to apply the paint.  She  explores and experiments with a limited palette creating a unique range of colours for her work.

 

Born in Luton in 1951, Mary Mabbutt attended Luton School of Art (1970-71), Loughborough College of Art & Design (1971-74), and the Royal Academy Schools (1975-78). She lives in Falmouth in Cornwall, where she moved in 1979 to work as a tutor in painting at Falmouth College of Art. Self-portraiture is at the heart of her creativity. She says, ‘ I have probably used the self-portrait more than any other subject as the starting point for my paintings. I paint what I do, where I am. In the making of my paintings, there is a tension between, on the one hand, desire to work from a memory and, on the other hand, a realisation that the memory does not hold enough visual interest – so I find I also need to work from observation as part of a process of live visual discovery.
‘I am keen to avoid the ‘stare’ of self-portraiture. I am not scrutinising my appearance or my expression in a ‘search for truth’. I am trying to make a painting where I can explore composition, space, light, colour, and how to fit incident into the whole but also maintain my grasp of the initial subject. The 2011 Self-Portraitdepicts me as a painter, in my studio. On the back wall are postcards indicating some different approaches to painting – Barnett Newman, Edgar Degas, Philip Guston, Peter Doig, Chardin, and Chris Offili. The context of the red studio is a nod to Matisse. A number of small studies were done from life to help me make the larger painting.’
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Mabbutt’s paintings are in the Collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Arts Council, London; The Usher Gallery, Lincoln; and Falmouth Art Gallery.

Stemming from Gina's early work as a Performance Artist, her interest has been and continues to be in space, atmosphere, time and memory. Parr's childhood environment, where she had neither control nor space as Gina's mother was an undiagnosed hoarder, deeply informed her Performance Art, Set Design TV career and subsequently her Painting and Photographic work; space and atmosphere are no longer just desirable commodities, she now feels it is necessary to create and recreate them, bouncing between clutter and clear. Parr's early performance work, “Not Enough Room to Swing a Cat in Here” at the Waterloo Gallery in 1980 explored the connection between possessions, confinement and absence of space. Subsequently, the series of photographs, “Horizon” has expanded this theme to create illusionary space from a cramped and chaotic environment in urban India and the Far East, and the Painting series, "River meets sea,” has been an exploration of the open space where two large bodies of fluid merge and has lead to the series “Spatial history”.


Considering the fine balance between chance and control has understandably also become increasingly important in Gina's work and this marks the tension between how much it is allowed to happen by chance, and the need to intervene and engineer the paint to control the developing relationship formed on the canvas. Whilst Gina's work is fundamentally abstract, the foundations are born out of figurative reference and autobiographical themes and draw on personal emotional passage and scenario.
In 2007 Gina returned to work full time as an Artist having originally graduated with a First Class Honours degree in Fine Art in 1980 and having practiced as a Performance Artist in London in the early 1980’s, going on to study Television Set Design at Chelsea College of Art and worked for the BBC as a Senior Production Designer, and later as a Freelance Production Designer across a number of channels. 
Gina Parr's work is in private collections in the United States, Canada, Norway, Germany, Switzerland, Eire, New Zealand and the UK. 

Anthony Frost, the son of Sir Terry Frost, was born in St Ives, Cornwall. Between 1970 and 1973 he studied at the Cardiff College of Art acheiving a BA (Hons) in Fine Art. Since then he has lectured on his subject at Falmouth School of Art, Canterbury School of Art, University of East London, Anglia University and served on the Devon County Advisory team at the Torquay Foundation Centre. He has been artist in residence at the Cyprus School of Art, Cyprus, Montmiral School of painting, Tarn, France and was Judge and Organiser at the Seven Celtic Artists Exhibition, Finnistere, France.
Anthony has been working in Cornwall since he graduated from Cardiff College of Art and lives deep within the West Penwith rural landscapes of Rosemergy, near Morvah on the Atlantic coast.  He is an active member of the well recognised artistic community of Penwith and exhibits regularly with the Newlyn Society of Artists.
Music has always been an important part of Frost's creativity and has been an inspiration for many years; more recently his personal artistic language has developed alongside the music he listens to in his studio.  He has always believed music to be the ultimate artform and says that he has been inspired far more strongly by musicians than by other artists.
Over the years Anthony's work has been exhibited at many of the major galleries in the UK and he has had solo exhibitions in London, Canterbury, Hull, Newlyn, Cambridge, Jersey and Gutersloh in Germany.

Simon was born in 1962 into a family of commercial printers. His artistic journey started out when an old 1850's printing press was discovered in the basement of an old stationery printers in Perth, Scotland. The press lay in pieces for many years but was finally moved to Exeter where Simon used it to help start the Double Elephant Print Workshop. 
He now uses this very same press to produce the stunning monoprints that he creates today. Based in Exeter he is now focussing on his own work and while also lecturing part time at the University of Plymouth and at Exeter College.

Simon's art education started in London, his degree however in Fine Art Printmaking was gained at Plymouth.

'what excites me is the not knowing - until one pulls back the paper from the block you never quite know how it will turn out. In my work I facilitate chance and actively encourage the unknown, the happy accident.' Simon's work is an intuitive response to the things that catch his eye. When seeing the finished article, one can see how the work has evolved on the paper. It is not restrained by anything tangible, leaving the viewer's imagination to explore its depths while taking in its form. His exploration of colour is exceptional - finding hues that can be stimulating but at the same time relaxing...tranquility without form.

Today Simon makes linocut relief monoprints on handmade Japanese paper. Each piece is unique, individually inspired and hand printed by Simon himself.

Heidi was brought up and educated in Germany but was first introduced to printing through her grandfather who produced many woodcuts and linocuts.
As a child she was fascinated with the various printing techniques and all the different tools that were used but today she works on her own prints in a very spontaneous way, using the etching plate as a drawing board, and then colouring every print by hand with many of the key details being added after they have been through the press.
Heidi's inspiration comes largely from travel, having come to Britain after travelling around Australia and South East Asia. She still makes regular trips overseas and enjoys meeting new people and experiencing different cultures.
Since completing her studies at Brighton and the Slade School of Fine Art, Heidi has received numerous awards and commissions for her work. Her monotypes, etchings and paintings can be found in public and private collections all over the world. 

Dubrey's work is strongly influenced by the Constructivism and lyrical Abstraction of the St Ives School ‘mid generation’ of artists, Dubrey’s art transcends pure formalism and encompasses a depth of autobiographical and emotional response.
Spontaneity is key in her work, with the unpredictability of outcome providing a drive to create.
Born in 1966, Dubrey grew up at the foot of the South Downs. She attended Wimbledon School of Art and the Royal
Academy Schools receiving a postgraduate diploma from the latter in 1992. A subsequent spell of five years in Normandy
was followed by a move to west Cornwall to fully immerse herself in the artistic heritage of the area that has always
been a vital inspiration to her creative process.
Dubrey's work was the first to be shown in London’s leading Scandinavian design store Skandium as part of their artists
showcase series in 2011, which in turn led to her paintings being used on the set of the BBC’s BAFTA Award winning 20th
anniversary ‘Absolutely Fabulous’ programmes, broadcast over Christmas and New Year 2011-12 and to coincide with the
2012 Olympics.
She lives with her husband and three children and works from her studio at her home near St Just in Penwith, west of
Penzance.
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​As a landscape painter Vanessa Gardiner is captivated both by the beauty of the places on which her work is based and by the processes involved during the making of the pictures. In a sense they go hand-in-hand: the immediacy of drawing directly from the seemingly haphazard natural subject matter, with the careful selection and ordering of the compositions back in the studio.

Concentrating on the singular coastlines around Cornwall, Ireland and more recently Greece, Gardiner have become increasingly aware of the connecting elements found within these landscapes. A bursary awarded by the British School at Athens in 2009 to enhance her work from Greece has focused my interest in the geometry of architecture and its relationship with both the landscape and the visual language she uses within her work.

Stephen Jacobson studied graphic design and illustration at Manchester and Liverpool Colleges of Art before moving to London to undertake a post-graduate course in painting at the Royal Academy Schools. Since graduating in 1973 he has continued to paint and exhibit nationally in various galleries and art fairs.
Although his work conspicuously lacks figures, Stephen has undertaken several family portrait commissions; but his main interest lies in translating the stillness to be found in landscapes and interiors that reflect the presence of humanity.
'Simple images capture my imagination, I paint the everyday scenes and objects that surround us but which we overlook or take for granted. Someone once said of my work that I “was looking for heaven on earth” and I suppose to a large extent they were right; you will see no decay or signs of ageing in my paintings, I am seeking a sense of order and an underlying essence of the things. I believe there is a joy to be found in the simplest juxtaposition of the elements that we find in the world. I am disinterested in the use of paint as a personal expression;I try to retain a sense of anonymity and remove any obstruction that may cloud the vision of the viewer.
Since moving to Portishead I have found a new and unexpected source of imagery. Prior to this I have always lived in the city but this semi rural coast has been a revelation, most notably the vastness of the skies. These have been a feature of my latest work and I have been incorporating them into my view of the world I am trying to represent.'