True to Form

15 November - 5 December

This exhibition features three painters, Julia Cooper, Ben Lowe & Diana Matthews FRSA, who enjoy exploring the finest line between the figurative and the abstract, pulling forms out of abstraction.  The exhibition is accompanied by a selection of stoneware ceramics by  Christine Feiler.

Julia Cooper

Julia Cooper is based on the south coast of Cornwall, her studio overlooking a busy harbour. This latest series of paintings concentrates on kitchen still-lifes painted in oil. Surfaces are washed with colour then scored, scraped back or obliterated to create an interesting narrative which allows her to explore colour and rhythm. Whether abstract or figurative the image is discovered through this process. 

Julia Cooper trained in Fine Art as well as Interior Design and has exhibited her work widely in the United Kingdom. She has recently been working on a large project with the National Trust in creating paintings for their holiday cottage refurbishments.

Ben Lowe

Ben Lowe’s work uses layers of abstract forms to capture atmosphere and emotion through landscape painting.  One of six finalists in BBC2’s ‘School of Saatchi’ – a significant achievement considering that he his largely self-taught, but yet he has developed a unique and powerful style. 

Diana Matthews FRSA

Diana Matthews trained at Bath Academy of Art under William Scott, Antony Fry, Gillian Ayres and Peter Lanyon. She then went on to teach fine art at various institutions and now paints full-time and exhibits her work regularly in London.

Jane Wheeler

Jane Wheeler was born and raised in Norfolk. Following studies in ceramics at Bath Academy of Art, Corsham.

For Jane, the vessel is a space-containing hollow form that offers the richest language for working in clay. Its conceptual simplicity allows readings which allude to our most distant cultural pasts, and to the state of being human. Its limitations are those for which the potter's tools and equipment are designed; it is a familiar scenario within which to work. Thus, it becomes necessary for Jane Wheeler to make working and the work uncomfortable in some way, to push the boundaries in order to attempt discovery of new or hidden qualities of this profoundly significant, yet ordinary object.

Julia Cooper

Diana Matthews FRSA

Jane Wheeler