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March Exhibition at cambridge contemporary art

exhibitions, Printmaking, Painting, Woodcambridge contemporary artComment

For our landscape-themed March exhibition at cambridge contemporary art, we are very excited to have new oil paintings by Emma Green, prints by Iona Howard and wooden trugs by Jane Crisp who is new to the gallery.

Emma Green is a contemporary landscape painter based in Woodbridge, Suffolk. Working from her studio by the river Deben, Emma is strongly inspired by the coastal environment around her. Emma’s new collection of work draws on the changing light and atmosphere of the river Deben.

 

Iona Howard’s fine art prints similarly express an intimate connection with landscape, mainly the flat fenland near her Cambridgeshire studio. Howard’s work has more recently been informed by a year-long collaboration with the Fenland Poet Laureate, Kate Caoimhe Arthur. Arthur’s poetry will be displayed alongside Howard’s prints, allowing a conversation to emerge between the two bodies of works both inspired by the fen-edge landscape.

 

Working from her home studio and workshop surrounded by beautiful countryside in Hale Fen, Cambridgeshire, Jane Crisp creates steam-bent trugs. The inspiration for her sculptural vessels comes from the Norfolk reeds and draws on her creative personal connections with local heritage and low-tech processes.

 

Events

We are hosting a poetry and music event on Thursday 15th March from 6-7pm. Kate Caoimhe Arthur who will be doing a poetry reading, accompanied by guitar music by Dominic Howard and sound recordings from the Fens.

Iona Howard will also be at the gallery to give a talk about her printmaking practice on Sunday 18th March at 2pm. This is a free event. This is a great chance to meet the artist and learn more about her printmaking process.

This free exhibition runs from 3rd - 25th March 2018. We are open Monday to Saturday from 9am to 5.30pm and Sunday from 11am to 5pm.

Reg Cartwright, Michael Lythgoe and Sarah Went Exhibition

Painting, ceramics, Woodcambridge contemporary artComment

Grey Still Life with Fish

This May, cambridge contemporary art is proud to present new paintings by Reg Cartwright, accompanied by Sarah Went’s ceramics and Michael Lythgoe’s sculptures. The exhibition runs from 30th April until 22nd May. You are warmly invited to the exhibition preview on Saturday 30th April from 11am to 1pm.

Reg Cartwright is an award-winning painter and illustrator from Leicester whose work has been exhibited around the world. He began his career as a graphic designer and became a full-time painter and illustrator in 1976. As an illustrator, he is well known for a series of picture books for young readers which he created in collaboration with his wife Ann. As a painter, he creates deceptively simple-looking still-lifes in which he renders everyday objects through subtle abstraction to focus on the tone, colour and physical qualities of his subject matter.

Suffolk Estuary

Reg Cartwright returns to cambridge contemporary art for his eighth major exhibition. His paintings continue the tradition of British Modernism, calling to mind that of St Ives School painters Ben Nicholson and William Scott. Working primarily with still life, Reg uses familiar objects such as jugs, plates and flowers as a pretext for examining complex spatial relationships. His paintings are less about the objects he paints and more about achieving a balanced and pleasing composition, attaining this by flattening perspective, omitting non-essential details and focusing on tone.

 

Bewicks Swan

Michael Lythgoe was born in Liverpool in 1950 and trained as an engineer. During a holiday in the Cape Cod region he purchased an old wooden decoy which inspired him to change careers and become a professional artist, creating wooden bird and fish carvings. Inspired by the early North American decoys Michael's stylised curvilinear representations of wildfowl and waders have now evolved into a style and form entirely unique to him. His sculptures are curvaceous and calming, combining the eye of an ornothologist with the precision of an engineer. Each sculpture is unique, carved from blocks of wood and then sympathetically painted.

Two Grass Ruffle Vases

 

Sarah Went is a Cambridge-based contemporary slipware potter who uses the traditional techniques of slip-trailing and sgraffito to create texture and pattern. Her work is hand-thrown on the potter’s wheel and individually decorated. Sarah uses porcelain clay which gives a delicate translucent quality to her work and is perfect for the soft, subtle colours that she uses. When making her glazes, Sarah aims for natural colours reminiscent of the sea, sand and plants around the coast or from her garden.