This exhibition entitled Energy shows mixed media land and seascape originals, limited edition prints, and seven small oil paintings illustrating the landform project being created in Cornwall. Elspeth works on the cusp of abstraction and figuration. “I attempt to reveal energy, a vitality which, once engaged, never diminishes with time.” This has been the appeal.
Elspeth qualified as an architect from Liverpool University, practiced for years and was invited to teach soon after qualifying. She has no formal training in painting but as an architect was regularly asked to make substantial commissions in glass and paint, and to lecture abroad.
She designed three large stained windows in West London in 1981, 1989 and 1996, and in 1983 painted a huge political cartoon, a mural in a house in Westminster for an active politician. It was during these projects she realized the power of communication through composition. In 1999 Elspeth was shortlisted for Millennium artist for North Cornwall. Six interactive proposals were made, all local and doable, including a dark skies project down-directing street lighting – all seen as too ambitious.
This exhibition can be seen as a retrospective on 20 years of painting. Three years of blindness (2013-16) make this show a real celebration and a natural transition to any potential new work. Elspeth started painting landscapes in 1991 while teaching design workshops in Australia. In November last year she returned, with improved – but impaired – vision, to Australia to paint the extreme coastal points including Point Lookout in the west and Albany in the south-west, which may lead to an inevitably different style of future work, but for now a celebration of sight and works dated to 2013.
Initially Elspeth exhibited her paintings in themed shows, for example at Salisbury Playhouse in 1996, with 80 small works around the drum to highlight erosion and pollution (the Sea Empress oil spill off west Wales and the breakage of Spurn Point road in Lincolnshire), issues in the environment but always the aesthetics of light, heat and sound as space makers, interactions that make a whole. This interest, focusing on energy and environmental conditions, has been reflected in the choice of subject and titles of earlier exhibitions. She has held a total of 22 exhibitions in London and elsewhere since 1994 and reviews, including the Spectator in 2002, have recommended a wider audience. She has also been interviewed on radio: Woman’s Hour 1994, BBC Radio 4 2013 and Liverpool City Radio 2008. Her paintings are held in collections in the UK and overseas. The concerns reflected in her shows underpin the educational facility in Cornwall as it progresses.
Intensity is a quality that penetrates the images which range from the quietude of a scene on the Thames to a force 9 wave off Land’s End. The interrelationship of abstraction and figuration mentioned earlier remains the prime creative interest to the artist. A timeless zero.
The next few years may prove very different. Elspeth hopes you and your friends will share refreshments with her as this new journey commences. She will be in the gallery throughout the exhibition.
Image: Shadows near Bridge of Orchy © Elspeth Hamilton, 2016. All Rights Reserved
Tuesday-Friday 13:00-17:00
Saturday 11:00-16:00
Sunday 11:00-17:00
Closed Monday
10-23 March 2017
This exhibition entitled Energy shows mixed media land and seascape originals, limited edition prints, and seven small oil paintings illustrating the landform project being created in Cornwall. Elspeth works on the cusp of abstraction and figuration. “I attempt to reveal energy, a vitality which, once engaged, never diminishes with time.” This has been the appeal.
Elspeth qualified as an architect from Liverpool University, practiced for years and was invited to teach soon after qualifying. She has no formal training in painting but as an architect was regularly asked to make substantial commissions in glass and paint, and to lecture abroad.
She designed three large stained windows in West London in 1981, 1989 and 1996, and in 1983 painted a huge political cartoon, a mural in a house in Westminster for an active politician. It was during these projects she realized the power of communication through composition. In 1999 Elspeth was shortlisted for Millennium artist for North Cornwall. Six interactive proposals were made, all local and doable, including a dark skies project down-directing street lighting – all seen as too ambitious.
This exhibition can be seen as a retrospective on 20 years of painting. Three years of blindness (2013-16) make this show a real celebration and a natural transition to any potential new work. Elspeth started painting landscapes in 1991 while teaching design workshops in Australia. In November last year she returned, with improved – but impaired – vision, to Australia to paint the extreme coastal points including Point Lookout in the west and Albany in the south-west, which may lead to an inevitably different style of future work, but for now a celebration of sight and works dated to 2013.
Initially Elspeth exhibited her paintings in themed shows, for example at Salisbury Playhouse in 1996, with 80 small works around the drum to highlight erosion and pollution (the Sea Empress oil spill off west Wales and the breakage of Spurn Point road in Lincolnshire), issues in the environment but always the aesthetics of light, heat and sound as space makers, interactions that make a whole. This interest, focusing on energy and environmental conditions, has been reflected in the choice of subject and titles of earlier exhibitions. She has held a total of 22 exhibitions in London and elsewhere since 1994 and reviews, including the Spectator in 2002, have recommended a wider audience. She has also been interviewed on radio: Woman’s Hour 1994, BBC Radio 4 2013 and Liverpool City Radio 2008. Her paintings are held in collections in the UK and overseas. The concerns reflected in her shows underpin the educational facility in Cornwall as it progresses.
Intensity is a quality that penetrates the images which range from the quietude of a scene on the Thames to a force 9 wave off Land’s End. The interrelationship of abstraction and figuration mentioned earlier remains the prime creative interest to the artist. A timeless zero.
The next few years may prove very different. Elspeth hopes you and your friends will share refreshments with her as this new journey commences. She will be in the gallery throughout the exhibition.
Image: Shadows near Bridge of Orchy © Elspeth Hamilton, 2016. All Rights Reserved
Tuesday-Friday 13:00-17:00
Saturday 11:00-16:00
Sunday 11:00-17:00
Closed Monday
10-23 March 2017
The Highgate Society Sustainable Homes Group is running a series of talks to help local residents bring their homes into the 21st Century. This talk will be particularly relevant if you are considering installation of renewable energy. Speakers are:
Jon Cowdrill – Joju Solar (Joju have many years experience of domestic and community solar renewables)
Marcus Franck – Franck Energy (Heat pump advisors)
Karen Loader’s artistic interests centre around the differences and similarities between place and space. She sees place as somewhere real and tangible, that can be experienced through the senses, and space as something abstract that is felt rather than observed. Her work explores the transition from one to the other and how both are inevitably intertwined.
Her artistic process begins with walking around a place and documenting it photographically, noting things such as architectural shapes, the textures of walls, the odd juxtapositions of objects and the colours that stand out. For this exhibition, she explored her local neighbourhood – the area between Holloway and Highgate, taking in the back streets and alleyways that branch off the A1 carriageway. Moving through a place physically helps her to construct a rhythmic interpretation of it and, when combined with focused observations, the character or personality of the place starts to emerge. This is a purely subjective act and the outcomes can vary depending on the place and her perception of it.
Back in the studio, she works with these elements of rhythm and observation taking them into intuitive drawings that play with spatial divisions and colour variations. The final stage is to scale up these two processes into larger paintings that hopefully retain some of the mood of the place in which she started. Her aim is to convey an atmosphere of place that can act as a trigger for memory and association and encourage the viewer towards a more contemplative reading of the work.
She often works within the set parameters of a grid format which allows for infinite possibilities to explore spatial and structural juxtapositions, but she is always looking for the moments when the mathematical harmony is disrupted by a slippage in symmetry. Her use of a muted colour palette in thin layers of acrylic paint adds to a sense of disorientation as the eye struggles to focus on a particular point and the mind jumps from shape to shape as it attempts to make connections. Colour plays an important part in creating both the harmony and the disruption of space and is strongly related to the original starting point of a place.
Karen has lived in Holloway for over 25 years. She studied sculpture and installation at the University of East London graduating in 1999. She is currently studying for an MA in Fine Art at The City & Guilds of London Art School. Her work has been widely exhibited since 2002 and she has curated a number of exhibitions in the UK and abroad.
All works are for sale.
www.karenloader.com
28th April to 11th May 2017
Highgate Gallery open Tuesday-Friday 13:00-17:00
Saturday 11:00-16:00
Sunday 11:00-17:00
Closed Monday
Image: I Heard it on the Radio ©Karen Loader, 2016. All Rights Reserved
KAREN LOADER’s artistic interests centre around the differences and similarities between place and space. She sees place as somewhere real and tangible, that can be experienced through the senses, and space as something abstract that is felt rather than observed. Her work explores the transition from one to the other and how both are inevitably intertwined.
Her artistic process begins with walking around a place and documenting it photographically, noting things such as architectural shapes, the textures of walls, the odd juxtapositions of objects and the colours that stand out. For this exhibition, she explored her local neighbourhood – the area between Holloway and Highgate, taking in the back streets and alleyways that branch off the A1 carriageway. Moving through a place physically helps her to construct a rhythmic interpretation of it and, when combined with focused observations, the character or personality of the place starts to emerge. This is a purely subjective act and the outcomes can vary depending on the place and her perception of it.
Back in the studio, she works with these elements of rhythm and observation taking them into intuitive drawings that play with spatial divisions and colour variations. The final stage is to scale up these two processes into larger paintings that hopefully retain some of the mood of the place in which she started. Her aim is to convey an atmosphere of place that can act as a trigger for memory and association and encourage the viewer towards a more contemplative reading of the work.
She often works within the set parameters of a grid format which allows for infinite possibilities to explore spatial and structural juxtapositions, but she is always looking for the moments when the mathematical harmony is disrupted by a slippage in symmetry. Her use of a muted colour palette in thin layers of acrylic paint adds to a sense of disorientation as the eye struggles to focus on a particular point and the mind jumps from shape to shape as it attempts to make connections. Colour plays an important part in creating both the harmony and the disruption of space and is strongly related to the original starting point of a place.
Karen has lived in Holloway for over 25 years. She studied sculpture and installation at the University of East London graduating in 1999. She is currently studying for an MA in Fine Art at The City & Guilds of London Art School. Her work has been widely exhibited since 2002 and she has curated a number of exhibitions in the UK and abroad.
Gallery open Tuesday-Friday 1-5pm, Saturday 11am-4pm, Sunday 11am-5pm; closed Mondays. Exhibition continues until 11 May.
Image: I Heard it on the Radio ©Karen Loader, 2016. All Rights Reserved
KAREN LOADER’s artistic interests centre around the differences and similarities between place and space. She sees place as somewhere real and tangible, that can be experienced through the senses, and space as something abstract that is felt rather than observed. Her work explores the transition from one to the other and how both are inevitably intertwined.
Her artistic process begins with walking around a place and documenting it photographically, noting things such as architectural shapes, the textures of walls, the odd juxtapositions of objects and the colours that stand out. For this exhibition, she explored her local neighbourhood – the area between Holloway and Highgate, taking in the back streets and alleyways that branch off the A1 carriageway. Moving through a place physically helps her to construct a rhythmic interpretation of it and, when combined with focused observations, the character or personality of the place starts to emerge. This is a purely subjective act and the outcomes can vary depending on the place and her perception of it.
Back in the studio, she works with these elements of rhythm and observation taking them into intuitive drawings that play with spatial divisions and colour variations. The final stage is to scale up these two processes into larger paintings that hopefully retain some of the mood of the place in which she started. Her aim is to convey an atmosphere of place that can act as a trigger for memory and association and encourage the viewer towards a more contemplative reading of the work.
She often works within the set parameters of a grid format which allows for infinite possibilities to explore spatial and structural juxtapositions, but she is always looking for the moments when the mathematical harmony is disrupted by a slippage in symmetry. Her use of a muted colour palette in thin layers of acrylic paint adds to a sense of disorientation as the eye struggles to focus on a particular point and the mind jumps from shape to shape as it attempts to make connections. Colour plays an important part in creating both the harmony and the disruption of space and is strongly related to the original starting point of a place.
Karen has lived in Holloway for over 25 years. She studied sculpture and installation at the University of East London graduating in 1999. She is currently studying for an MA in Fine Art at The City & Guilds of London Art School. Her work has been widely exhibited since 2002 and she has curated a number of exhibitions in the UK and abroad.
Highgate Gallery open Tuesday-Friday 13:00-17:00
Saturday 11:00-16:00
Sunday 11:00-17:00
Closed Monday.
Exhibition continues until 11 May.
Karen Loader’s artistic interests centre around the differences and similarities between place and space. She sees place as somewhere real and tangible, that can be experienced through the senses, and space as something abstract that is felt rather than observed. Her work explores the transition from one to the other and how both are inevitably intertwined.
Her artistic process begins with walking around a place and documenting it photographically, noting things such as architectural shapes, the textures of walls, the odd juxtapositions of objects and the colours that stand out. For this exhibition, she explored her local neighbourhood – the area between Holloway and Highgate, taking in the back streets and alleyways that branch off the A1 carriageway. Moving through a place physically helps her to construct a rhythmic interpretation of it and, when combined with focused observations, the character or personality of the place starts to emerge. This is a purely subjective act and the outcomes can vary depending on the place and her perception of it.
Back in the studio, she works with these elements of rhythm and observation taking them into intuitive drawings that play with spatial divisions and colour variations. The final stage is to scale up these two processes into larger paintings that hopefully retain some of the mood of the place in which she started. Her aim is to convey an atmosphere of place that can act as a trigger for memory and association and encourage the viewer towards a more contemplative reading of the work.
She often works within the set parameters of a grid format which allows for infinite possibilities to explore spatial and structural juxtapositions, but she is always looking for the moments when the mathematical harmony is disrupted by a slippage in symmetry. Her use of a muted colour palette in thin layers of acrylic paint adds to a sense of disorientation as the eye struggles to focus on a particular point and the mind jumps from shape to shape as it attempts to make connections. Colour plays an important part in creating both the harmony and the disruption of space and is strongly related to the original starting point of a place.
Karen has lived in Holloway for over 25 years. She studied sculpture and installation at the University of East London graduating in 1999. She is currently studying for an MA in Fine Art at The City & Guilds of London Art School. Her work has been widely exhibited since 2002 and she has curated a number of exhibitions in the UK and abroad.
All works are for sale.
www.karenloader.com
28th April to 11th May 2017
Highgate Gallery open Tuesday-Friday 13:00-17:00
Saturday 11:00-16:00
Sunday 11:00-17:00
Closed Monday
Karen Loader’s artistic interests centre around the differences and similarities between place and space. She sees place as somewhere real and tangible, that can be experienced through the senses, and space as something abstract that is felt rather than observed. Her work explores the transition from one to the other and how both are inevitably intertwined.
Her artistic process begins with walking around a place and documenting it photographically, noting things such as architectural shapes, the textures of walls, the odd juxtapositions of objects and the colours that stand out. For this exhibition, she explored her local neighbourhood – the area between Holloway and Highgate, taking in the back streets and alleyways that branch off the A1 carriageway. Moving through a place physically helps her to construct a rhythmic interpretation of it and, when combined with focused observations, the character or personality of the place starts to emerge. This is a purely subjective act and the outcomes can vary depending on the place and her perception of it.
Back in the studio, she works with these elements of rhythm and observation taking them into intuitive drawings that play with spatial divisions and colour variations. The final stage is to scale up these two processes into larger paintings that hopefully retain some of the mood of the place in which she started. Her aim is to convey an atmosphere of place that can act as a trigger for memory and association and encourage the viewer towards a more contemplative reading of the work.
She often works within the set parameters of a grid format which allows for infinite possibilities to explore spatial and structural juxtapositions, but she is always looking for the moments when the mathematical harmony is disrupted by a slippage in symmetry. Her use of a muted colour palette in thin layers of acrylic paint adds to a sense of disorientation as the eye struggles to focus on a particular point and the mind jumps from shape to shape as it attempts to make connections. Colour plays an important part in creating both the harmony and the disruption of space and is strongly related to the original starting point of a place.
Karen has lived in Holloway for over 25 years. She studied sculpture and installation at the University of East London graduating in 1999. She is currently studying for an MA in Fine Art at The City & Guilds of London Art School. Her work has been widely exhibited since 2002 and she has curated a number of exhibitions in the UK and abroad.
All works are for sale.
www.karenloader.com
28th April to 11th May 2017
Highgate Gallery open Tuesday-Friday 13:00-17:00
Saturday 11:00-16:00
Sunday 11:00-17:00
Closed Monday
Karen Loader’s artistic interests centre around the differences and similarities between place and space. She sees place as somewhere real and tangible, that can be experienced through the senses, and space as something abstract that is felt rather than observed. Her work explores the transition from one to the other and how both are inevitably intertwined.
Her artistic process begins with walking around a place and documenting it photographically, noting things such as architectural shapes, the textures of walls, the odd juxtapositions of objects and the colours that stand out. For this exhibition, she explored her local neighbourhood – the area between Holloway and Highgate, taking in the back streets and alleyways that branch off the A1 carriageway. Moving through a place physically helps her to construct a rhythmic interpretation of it and, when combined with focused observations, the character or personality of the place starts to emerge. This is a purely subjective act and the outcomes can vary depending on the place and her perception of it.
Back in the studio, she works with these elements of rhythm and observation taking them into intuitive drawings that play with spatial divisions and colour variations. The final stage is to scale up these two processes into larger paintings that hopefully retain some of the mood of the place in which she started. Her aim is to convey an atmosphere of place that can act as a trigger for memory and association and encourage the viewer towards a more contemplative reading of the work.
She often works within the set parameters of a grid format which allows for infinite possibilities to explore spatial and structural juxtapositions, but she is always looking for the moments when the mathematical harmony is disrupted by a slippage in symmetry. Her use of a muted colour palette in thin layers of acrylic paint adds to a sense of disorientation as the eye struggles to focus on a particular point and the mind jumps from shape to shape as it attempts to make connections. Colour plays an important part in creating both the harmony and the disruption of space and is strongly related to the original starting point of a place.
Karen has lived in Holloway for over 25 years. She studied sculpture and installation at the University of East London graduating in 1999. She is currently studying for an MA in Fine Art at The City & Guilds of London Art School. Her work has been widely exhibited since 2002 and she has curated a number of exhibitions in the UK and abroad.
All works are for sale.
www.karenloader.com
28th April to 11th May 2017
Highgate Gallery open Tuesday-Friday 13:00-17:00
Saturday 11:00-16:00
Sunday 11:00-17:00
Closed Monday
Karen Loader’s artistic interests centre around the differences and similarities between place and space. She sees place as somewhere real and tangible, that can be experienced through the senses, and space as something abstract that is felt rather than observed. Her work explores the transition from one to the other and how both are inevitably intertwined.
Her artistic process begins with walking around a place and documenting it photographically, noting things such as architectural shapes, the textures of walls, the odd juxtapositions of objects and the colours that stand out. For this exhibition, she explored her local neighbourhood – the area between Holloway and Highgate, taking in the back streets and alleyways that branch off the A1 carriageway. Moving through a place physically helps her to construct a rhythmic interpretation of it and, when combined with focused observations, the character or personality of the place starts to emerge. This is a purely subjective act and the outcomes can vary depending on the place and her perception of it.
Back in the studio, she works with these elements of rhythm and observation taking them into intuitive drawings that play with spatial divisions and colour variations. The final stage is to scale up these two processes into larger paintings that hopefully retain some of the mood of the place in which she started. Her aim is to convey an atmosphere of place that can act as a trigger for memory and association and encourage the viewer towards a more contemplative reading of the work.
She often works within the set parameters of a grid format which allows for infinite possibilities to explore spatial and structural juxtapositions, but she is always looking for the moments when the mathematical harmony is disrupted by a slippage in symmetry. Her use of a muted colour palette in thin layers of acrylic paint adds to a sense of disorientation as the eye struggles to focus on a particular point and the mind jumps from shape to shape as it attempts to make connections. Colour plays an important part in creating both the harmony and the disruption of space and is strongly related to the original starting point of a place.
Karen has lived in Holloway for over 25 years. She studied sculpture and installation at the University of East London graduating in 1999. She is currently studying for an MA in Fine Art at The City & Guilds of London Art School. Her work has been widely exhibited since 2002 and she has curated a number of exhibitions in the UK and abroad.
All works are for sale.
www.karenloader.com
28th April to 11th May 2017
Highgate Gallery open Tuesday-Friday 13:00-17:00
Saturday 11:00-16:00
Sunday 11:00-17:00
Closed Monday
Image: I Heard it on the Radio ©Karen Loader, 2016. All Rights Reserved
KAREN LOADER’s artistic interests centre around the differences and similarities between place and space. She sees place as somewhere real and tangible, that can be experienced through the senses, and space as something abstract that is felt rather than observed. Her work explores the transition from one to the other and how both are inevitably intertwined.
Her artistic process begins with walking around a place and documenting it photographically, noting things such as architectural shapes, the textures of walls, the odd juxtapositions of objects and the colours that stand out. For this exhibition, she explored her local neighbourhood – the area between Holloway and Highgate, taking in the back streets and alleyways that branch off the A1 carriageway. Moving through a place physically helps her to construct a rhythmic interpretation of it and, when combined with focused observations, the character or personality of the place starts to emerge. This is a purely subjective act and the outcomes can vary depending on the place and her perception of it.
Back in the studio, she works with these elements of rhythm and observation taking them into intuitive drawings that play with spatial divisions and colour variations. The final stage is to scale up these two processes into larger paintings that hopefully retain some of the mood of the place in which she started. Her aim is to convey an atmosphere of place that can act as a trigger for memory and association and encourage the viewer towards a more contemplative reading of the work.
She often works within the set parameters of a grid format which allows for infinite possibilities to explore spatial and structural juxtapositions, but she is always looking for the moments when the mathematical harmony is disrupted by a slippage in symmetry. Her use of a muted colour palette in thin layers of acrylic paint adds to a sense of disorientation as the eye struggles to focus on a particular point and the mind jumps from shape to shape as it attempts to make connections. Colour plays an important part in creating both the harmony and the disruption of space and is strongly related to the original starting point of a place.
Karen has lived in Holloway for over 25 years. She studied sculpture and installation at the University of East London graduating in 1999. She is currently studying for an MA in Fine Art at The City & Guilds of London Art School. Her work has been widely exhibited since 2002 and she has curated a number of exhibitions in the UK and abroad.
Gallery open Tuesday-Friday 1-5pm, Saturday 11am-4pm, Sunday 11am-5pm; closed Mondays. Exhibition continues until 11 May.