THE Wednesday Four, a group of four artist friends who gather in Scarborough each week – busy schedules permitting – are exhibiting at Pyramid Gallery, Stonegate, York, until November 11.
Shirley Vauvelle (ceramic sculpture and paintings), Gillian Martin (paintings and prints), Katie Braida (ceramics) and Lindsey Tyson (paintings) have been meeting for three years but have known each other much longer.
“Our aim is to discuss art in progress, offer constructive criticism and encouragement, exchange ideas and generally share art inspiration whilst having a good catch-up,” they say in their artist statement.
“It is a great privilege to be amongst such supportive artist friends. This is the first time the four of us have exhibited together.”
Shirley has made things since childhood, sewing dolls clothes or making pieces from found natural forms such as sea shells. She has been a designer, educator, gallery owner and, over the past decade, a maker and artist, showing work in galleries around the UUK.
“I feel painting and ceramics overlap in the way I treat the surfaces and that search for depth and a sense of self,” says Shirley. “My practice has tended to produce playful component pieces combined with found materials, assemblages inspired by creatures, birds and plants. It is now developing into larger-scale, semi-abstract, hand-built sculptural ceramic forms and paintings.
Shirley’s art education background and initial design career was in textile/surface decoration, studying at Chester College on a foundation course and Leicester Polytechnic for a BA Hons, graduating in 1987.
Self taught in ceramics, she works from a light-filled studio in her home, situated near the seaside town of Filey and featured in publications.
“An important part of my surroundings is the coast and my garden, which is continuously being developed and evolving, full of many interesting plants selected for form, texture rather than prettiness, many of them being used within my work,” says Shirley.
“The work has evolved over a long period of time, in the background of my more commercial work. After the experience of lockdown, with more time to experiment and freedom to think about ideas, this has led to hand-built sculptures and assemblages in stoneware clay, with found materials.
“With the luxury of more time to appreciate peace and nature, allowing thinking space to the stages of development, it is very much reflected in how the pieces have evolved.”
The work is now moving forward with more personal expression, still taking inspiration from her surroundings, focusing on shape, form, colour and moods.
“I’m exploring surfaces, playing with found materials, different clays and paint, all with the emphasis on looking at the different relationships of form and shapes,” says Shirley. “I’m also thinking about the wider context of nature on our planet, the strength and fragility of nature.”
Shirley’s art is in private collections in the UK, the United States of America, Canada, Australia and Germany. Her work has been selected regularly to show at Oxford and York Ceramic Fair with the Craft Potters
Association.
In April this year, she was invited to exhibit alongside studio work by John Maltby at the Yew Tree Gallery on the west coast of Cornwall, at Keigwin, between St Ives and St Just. in April. In September, she was selected to show at the 20th anniversary Brighton Art Fair.
Gillian Martin has worked professionally as an illustrator and designer for many years, originally in London while working at the Tate Gallery too. She now lives in Scarborough.
She has collaborated with a wide range of clients, publishers and design agencies, with her work appearing in many publications, on licensed products and also sold as prints.
Clients include Sony, Universal Records, Oxford and Cambridge University Presses, BBC Books, Macmillan and many others.
Alongside her illustrations, Gillian is an abstract artist, taking inspiration from modernism and colour field painting.
“My illustrations and paintings are primarily rooted in my love of mid-century art and design,” she says. “My paintings focus on the drama between line, shape and colour and aim to create a pleasing balance between these elements.”
She is delighted to have had a painting included in the Ferens Art Gallery 2024 Open Exhibition in Hull.
Katie Braida makes sculptural vessels and forms using a variety of hand-building techniques. Working with soft clay coils and slabs and allowing the material to move and suggest direction for development, the forms grow during this process.
“Once the forms are refined, the surfaces can be layered with pattern and texture inspired by discovering the rhythms and patterns within the natural and man-made environment,” says Katie. “The development of texture and pattern helps to create an invitingly tactile surface to the work.”
Having started pottery at school, Katie studied ceramics as part of her degree and became a teacher specialising in ceramics in secondary education. She has taken part in national ceramics fairs and her work features in private collections.
Lindsey Tyson draws inspiration from her upbringing in rural North Yorkshire by the coast, where she developed a deep connection to the dramatic weather and elemental energy of her surroundings.
After more than 30 years as a textile designer, Lindsey has transitioned into a full-time painter. Last year, she won the Women in Art/ Hampstead School of Art Abstract Painting Prize, marking a significant milestone in her burgeoning career.
“Driven by intuition and a desire to create something original, a limited palette guides my work – delighting in muted, unsaturated colours, punctuated by strategic bursts of brightness,” says Lindsey. “Process, mark-making and the mixing of media are essential to my art, where I create numerous layers and seductive surfaces, drawing you in to take a closer look.”
The Wednesday Four, Pyramid Gallery, Stonegate, York, until November 11. Opening hours: Monday to Saturday, 10am to 5pm.
