Meet these exciting new guys on the block
Open Studios artists return to open their workspaces and exhibitions from May 7-29 alongside the showcase exhibition INSIGHT 2022 at The Base, Greenham. They will be happy to talk about their process with visitors. Works are for sale, but there is no obli
WHILE it is always a pleasure to catch up with the regular artists and makers, it’s great to discover new work, like that of two new artists who join the scheme this year – Thatcham painter Laura Cranstoun and Newbury printmaker Sarah Gordon.
A long-term visitor to Open Studios, she now opens her own studio and is looking forward to wecoming people.
“Well excited is an understatement! It seems that spring/summer 2022 will be quite different for me. I’ve grown up visiting Open Studios in West Berkshire and North Hampshire for the past 30-odd years and so to be part of it this year is amazing.”
Laura’s paintings are colourful, playful acrylic, ink and collage that is contemporary and abstract. They are “quick responses to my often exuberant and sometimes foggy emotions”.
“A strict picture framer by trade now has meant that with painting I be much more free, risk adverse and vivacious.
“As an ‘emerging artist’ who is done with a corporate life and my MS shackles and instead is finding new inspiration through my young children, nature and hidden things. Working with resin coatings has also become rather addictive and has found its way on to my art.
“But above all people fascinate me, so come along to enjoy my studio so I can have some new inspiring conversations and you can appraise my offering this year.”
As a landlocked island girl, originally from the Isle of Wight, Sarah Gordon’s work is the reflection of her passion for the coast, specifically the treasures hidden and revealed each day by the tides.
“I find the transient, impermanence of the coast so stimulating and exciting, each visit is different, dictated by the weather and the shifts of the tides, each day is a new start as the beach is wiped clean, replenished.
“I am an avid beach comber, visiting the Jurassic coast at every opportunity to feed my obsession. I utilise my collections not only as inspiration but as part of my creative process as I compose mono prints working with pressed seaweeds, fossils and hand-cut stencils inspired by coastal patterns and forms. My working processes echo the coastal layers as I build layered compositions which express both my infatuation for the coast and passion for rich colour and pattern.”
A design crafts graduate, Sarah’s work has always been coastal themed, but she says it’s taken a long time to return to find her rhythm as an artist after 16 years of teaching art and raising two boys. “I feel I have found that space since I began working with Gelli plate mono printing three years ago. I make my own printing plates with gelatine and glycerine. I adore the
... above all people fascinate me, so come along to enjoy my studio
printing process and find it seriously addictive, it offers so much space for creative play.
“I am thrilled to be part of Open Studios this year, a chance for me to share my work and my love of the processes and of course the coast with other like-minded creatives.” www.open-studios.org.uk