Loré Lixenburg: Hosting SINGLR An Appera at the NCEM, York, on Sunday
MEZZO soprano Loré Lixenberg hosts SINGLR An Appera, an experimental sound event, at the National Centre for Early Music, Walmgate, York, on Sunday at 8pm.
Developed at the University of York, the world’s first contemporary music experimental voice Appera – a cross between an app and an opera! – comes to St Margaret’s Church for one night only.
The stories presented on stage recount the first meetings of participants in a specially created purely vocal dating app, SINGLR.
Welcome to SINGLR’s “fabulous dreamlike musical evening”
SINGLR ponders: What kind of voice do you like? Low growly voices or high and pure? Are you a fan of a throaty, husky sound or a voice as clear and sonorous as a bell? What would be the outcome if we chose who to be with on the basis of the voice and vocal creativity, rather than the usual parameters of visual appearance, income and what kind of pizza someone prefers?
“For the audience, the SINGLR salon will be a fabulous dreamlike musical evening where ambient electronic tracks and live musicians accompany the vocalised conversations of the SINGLR app participants,” says Lydia Cottrell, of York event organisers SLAP.
Tickets can be booked on 01904 658338 or at ncem.co.uk on a Pay What You Can basis: £2, £4, £6, £8 or £10.
Them There Then That, Tabitha Grove’s story about stories, tours Explore York York libraries for Big City Read through October
Tabitha Grove explores beauty in the way that everything holds a story in Them There Then That at Explore York libraries
IN a second SLAP event, Big City Read 2022 artist-in-residence Tabitha Grove is exploring the beauty of the way that everything holds a story in Them There Then That, on tour at Explore York Libraries on various dates until October 30.
This new solo performance is inspired by Behind The Scenes At The Museum, York shopkeeper’s daughter Kate Atkinson’s 1995 debut novel, wherein she depicts the experiences of Ruby Lennox, a girl from a working-class English family living in Atkinson’s home city.
“It isn’t just books that hold our stories. It’s the people. It’s the places. It’s the times. It’s the objects around us,” says the event blurb.
The poster for the Big City Read 2022’s tour of Them There Then That, a story about stories by Tabitha Grove
“We’ve all created stories from the moment that we could. We haven’t always written them though. We’ve drawn them, we’ve spoken them and we’ve sung them. And the point of all this? To share them.”
In doing so, “if we listen carefully enough, these tales can even help us create our own stories”.
Tabitha will be performing “a story about stories” at Tang Hall Explore Library tomorrow, 11am to 12 noon; Hungate Reading Café, October 26, 7pm to 8pm; Dringhouses Library, October 29, 1pm to 1.30pm, and York Explore Library, October 30, 2pm to 3pm. Tickets are pay-what-you-can, starting at free, at slapyork.co.uk/events?tag=TTTT.
Serious advice from Joanna Lisowiec in her lettering series
AFTER the Covid-enforced fallow year of 2020, York Open Studios returns this weekend for its 20th parade of the city’s creative talent.
Preceded by tomorrow’s preview evening, from 6pm to 9pm, the event will see 145 artists and makers open 95 studios, homes and workplaces on July 10 and 11 and July 17 and 18, from 10am to 5pm.
Among them will be 43 debutants, prompting CharlesHutchPress to highlight six newcomers a day over the week ahead, in map guide order, as York prepares for a showcase of ceramic, collage, digital art, illustration, jewellery, mixed media, painting, print, photography, furniture, sculpture and textiles skills this month.
“Soothingly immersive”: Fiona Love’s art in her own words
Fiona Lane, painting, 8 Claremont Terrace, Gillygate, York
SELF-TAUGHT artist Fiona paints seascapes and landscapes, mostly on canvas.
“Most of my work is seas and trees,” she says. “I’m inspired by the beautiful and diverse Yorkshire countryside, which is so accessible to me.”
Favouring mixed media, she loves working with colour and light, creating pictures that she describes as “almost 3D” and “soothingly immersive”.
“I prefer to paint outside,” says Fiona Lane, not least in her flower-filled courtyard
“I’m always developing my style,” she says. “I stretch and smooth paint which I apply with palette knives and brushes, adding details with other media. I prefer to paint outside, whether in the woods, by the sea or in my flower-filled York courtyard.”
Fiona will be taking part in tomorrow’s preview evening.
Creating textile designs is a form of meditation for Ealish Wilson
Ealish Wilson, textiles, PICA Studios, Grape Lane, York, second weekend only
TEXTILE designer Ealish has lived and worked in many places around the world, spending 15 years in the USA before making her way to York and joining the PICA Studios arts hub.
However, Japan was where her work was transformed. “Japan taught me that art exploration and practice is a lifelong journey from which we constantly learn,” she says.
“Experience informs the creative process over time, enhancing and developing an artist’s expression. It’s about seeing creativity in the everyday.”
She brings this philosophy to making her sculptural textiles, using a variety of substrates and techniques, including print, drawing, photography and stitching.
Ealish Wilson’s artistic philosophy: “Seeing creativity in the everyday”
“I repeat this process to create multiple iterations and layers to my designs,” she says. “Much of my process investigates pattern and its transformation through surface manipulation. I use many traditional hand methods of stitching, such as pleating and smocking, to physically alter my original designs.
“Frequently my work starts in the digital realm: whether photographing an object or one of my own paintings, it serves as inspiration for new work. Many of my images are everyday scenes or objects of purpose that appear mundane but feature a beautiful shape or colour that’s a perfect jumping-off point to create a textile.”
Ealish, who sees the craft of making as “my form or meditation”, is also exhibiting in the Westside Artists’ Momentum Summer Show at Blossom Street Gallery, York, until September 26.
Embroidery by Amy Butcher
Amy Butcher, textiles, 1 Carlton Cottages, Wigginton, York
FOR Amy’s applique-based hand embroidery, a collage of intricately cut fabric shapes creates a foundation. This is then stitched and embellished to make illustrative pieces rooted in nature and animals.
“My love of art and textiles started at school and has been a passion ever since,” says the largely self-taught Amy.
Amy Butcher: A passion for textiles
“The support and inspiration from an embroidery class enabled me to continue to develop my work and confidence, and in 2014 I was fortunate to get the opportunity to work with the greetings card company Bug Art.”
She now works on developing her own range of greetings cards, prints, cushion panels, coasters and embroidery stitch kits, printed from her original textile art for Beaks & Bobbins.
Tomorrow’s preview evening will be the first chance to catch her York Open Studios debut.
Golden Orioles, an illustration, by Joanna Lisowiec
Joanna Lisowiec, illustration, 40 Hempland Drive, York
JOANNA’S prints and illustrations look to nature, classical art and mythology for inspiration, as she focuses on birds and animals in her bold, clean and distinctive linocuts, drawings and paintings.
“My aspiration is to capture truths that make one ponder the beauty of life,” she says.
Originally from Poland and brought up in Colorado, USA, and Switzerland, she first came to Britain to study illustration at Edinburgh College of Art, falling in love with the wild Highlands and later with the “quaint English countryside” when she moved to Yorkshire for her MA in advertising and design from the University of Leeds.
“As an illustrator and printmaker, I’m known for a bold style of illustration with lots of texture, usually focused on the beauty of nature and narratives inspired by folklore. I love reading books and would love to illustrate a classic novel one day,” says Joanna, whose surname is pronounced “Lease-oviets”.
“When I’m not working, I can be found with my nose in a book, taking long walks in the countryside, drinking tea and listening to the rain.”
She will be opening her studio for tomorrow’s preview.
Black Mist, by Dee Thwaite
Dee Thwaite, painting, 10 Bedale Avenue, York, second weekend only
DEE uses acrylic paint, inks, graphite, oil pastels and charcoal in her sea and landscape paintings and drawings, marked by stormy skies, movement in the clouds, shifting light and the changing seasons.
Dee Thwaite at work in her studio
Mainly self-taught, this contemporary abstract artist expresses her love of the North Yorkshire coastline on canvas, board and paper in works that combine both a physical and emotional response when she paints, predominantly with her hands, as opposed to brushes.
“Painting has become such a healing and therapeutic part of my life and one of my greatest passions,” says Dee.
A Tabitha Grove painting on handmade paper
Tabitha Grove, painting, Arnup Studios, Panman Lane, Holtby, York
TABITHA uses bold colour, contrast, ink, watercolour, gold leaf and collage on handmade paper, fabric and even garments to explore perceptions of the body and how they can be challenged and celebrated.
Her career as an actor and costume designer for film and theatre has informed Tabitha’s passion for storytelling and her fascination with the way our bodies interact with our environments.
Tabitha Grove: Actor, costume designer, art therapist, piano restorer….and artist
Tabitha’s career portfolio career extends to co-managing Look Gallery, in Helmsley, being an art therapist in hospitals and now working in piano restoration, where she learns rare skills that influence her art.
Each experience has informed Tabitha’s style, she says, leading to her “bringing diverse technique to a new perspective”.
TOMORROW: Reg Walker, Michelle Galloway, Judith Glover and Here Be Monsteras Ceramics (Kayti Peschke).
YORK Open
Studios 2020, the chance to meet 144 artists at 100 locations over two April
weekends, has had to be cancelled in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.
However,
with doors sadly shut for the April 17 to 19 and April 25 to 26 event,
CharlesHutchPress wants to champion the creativity of York’s artists and
makers, who would have been showcasing ceramics, collage, digital,
illustration, jewellery, mixed media, painting, print, photography, sculpture
and textiles.
Each day, in brochure order, five artists who now miss out on the exposure of Open Studios will be given a pen portrait on these pages, because so much art will have been created for the event and still needs a new home. Addresses will not be included at this time.
Dee Thwaite: painting with hands, not brushes
Dee Thwaite, painting
YORK Open Studios
newcomer Dee uses acrylic paint, inks, graphite and charcoal in her sea and
landscape paintings and drawings, marked by expressive skies, storms and the
changing seasons.
Mainly self-taught, this contemporary abstract artist expresses her love of the North Yorkshire coastline on canvas, board and paper in works that combine both a physical and emotional response when she paints, predominantly with her hands, as opposed to brushes. Contact Dee via deethwaite@hotmail.com.
Anna Vialle at work with a pen
Anna Vialle, drawing
INSPIRED by the style
and colours of both Japanese woodblock and Victorian prints, Anna limits
herself to drawing insects, birds, landscapes, anatomy and trees.
Anna had trained in art education in 1997. Twenty-two years later, when trying to relax after working difficult shifts as a mental-health nurse, she started a pen and watercolour illustration of 24 individually drawn moths.
Exploring the connection between repetition and focus, she began using dots to create her artwork, whereupon a stress-free style of art emerged. Cue a “more relaxed” mental-health nurse! Visit annavialle.co.uk for more info.
Rosie Bramley surrounded by her art
Rosie Bramley, painting
ROSIE’S colourful paintings explore her devotion and connection to the land and sea. Gestural marks dance around the surface of each painting as she creates abstract works inspired by nature.
Rosie studied fine art painting
and printmaking, graduating from Bretton Hall College, University of Leeds, in
1996. Now head of art at Driffield Secondary School and Sixth Form in
East Yorkshire, where she teaches both fine art and photography, she has exhibited
regularly in York, latterly at Fossgate Social, City Screen and Angel on the
Green.
Her first Open Studios
show since 2011 would have featured new works inspired by the landscape. Her website,
rosiebramley.com, divides her work into Abstracts, The Cruel Sea and Mountains.
A nude by Tabitha Grove
Tabitha Grove, painting
SELECTED for York Open Studios
for the first time, Tabitha uses bold colour, contrast, ink, watercolour, gold
leaf and collage on handmade paper to explore perceptions of the body and how
they can be challenged and celebrated.
Her career as an actor and costume designer for film and theatre has informed Tabitha’s passion for storytelling and her fascination with the way our bodies interact with our environments.
Tabitha Grove: actor, costume designer, piano restorer….and artist
Tabitha’s career portfolio career extends to having
co-managed Look Gallery, in Helmsley, and now working in piano restoration,
where she learns rare skills that influence her art.
Each experience has informed Tabitha’s style, she says,
leading to her “bringing diverse technique to a new perspective”. Find her work
via tabithamayg@gmail.com.
Peter Heaton: “images that need careful time and observation”
Peter Heaton, photography
PETER specialises in
black and white limited-edition photographic prints of woodlands and dark landscapes:
images that need careful time and observation as the space they inhabit is full
of visual surprises, he says.
Before the camera lens and
digital imaging took precedence, Peter studied fine art at Nottingham Trent
University and later gained an MA in fine art from Leeds Metropolitan
University.
A dark woodland, by Peter Heaton
Over the past few years, Peter’s work has revolved around the complexities of layering visual information and our interpretations of the resulting images. In 2010, he set up Vale of York Darkrooms, where he teaches courses in both traditional chemical-based black-and-white photography and digital imaging. Take a look at his photographs at peterheaton.co.uk.
Tomorrow: Sarah K Jackson; Kate Pettitt; Reg Walker; Constance Isobel and Chris Utley.
