THE ART ROOM Topsham - contemporary art
gallery in Devon
Tramlines, Krakow
The landscape and figurative paintings by Valerie draw on classics as well as contemporary influences, providing colourful impressions from various cultures.
See more about Valerie here
Martin Bentham was born in Aldershot in 1961, the son of an architect.
Martin studied at Exeter College of Art & Design and gained a fine art degree, inspired by Clifford Fishwick, Mike Gorman, Nick Gray and Mike Garton.
Foxgloves, Blackdown
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Still Life
Summer £1200
Zoe Cameron was born in Hayling Island in1959 and studied at Gloucestershire College of Art and Design. She moved to Cornwall in1987 and it was here that she was influenced by a tradition of painting that is integral to her work today.
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Cliff was born in Lancashire in 1923. He studied at Liverpool School of Art between 1940 and 1947 with a four year break for war services with the Royal Navy.
In 1947 Cliff was appointed Painting Master at Exeter School of Art and in 1957 had his first solo exhibition in London.
Man, Sheep and Gate
£650
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Dartmoor near
Poundsgate £695
When Michael Garton became Cliff Fishwick’s student in 1955, the Art College occupied a small part of the Royal Albert Memorial Museum in Exeter.
By the time Cliff, then the College’s Principal, appointed Mike as a lecturer, Cliff had started the process of change which would result in the College expanding to become a major cultural force in the city and the South West.
See more about Michael here
Cloud Sunset Over
Ottery St Mary
Between 1970 and 1993 Hilary Goddard was the Head of Fine Art at the highly regarded Maynards School in Exeter. Her passion for art and teaching inspired generations of students and gave the school a serious and enduring reputation for Fine Art.
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Francis’s work in the early sixties he describes as ‘Thick Pop’, a reaction against the Euston Road School. It was a time when objective drawing and painting was unfashionable and Francis explored other ways of expressing his ideas.
Cows at Flushing
£5,850
Hedge In Spring £950
In 1984 Robert gave up teaching to concentrate on his own work and has been exhibiting regularly since 1961 with solo shows in London, Milan, Belfast and Bristol. His work can be found in public and private collections in Europe, Canada and the USA.
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In 1978 Robert was ‘artist in residence’ at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum in Exeter where he painted and gave lunch time lectures, they later purchased a ten-foot painting for their collection entitled ‘Natural History’.
The Dansant I
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Coast
Nicholas was born in Athens and studied at the Royal College of Art London. His strong abstract paintings depict the coastline of Brittany and the South West of England.
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Portland Lighthouse
Entrance
Rae has always been interested in the ordinary person, factory workers and bleak urban environments. His work is edgy, sometimes brooding but always poetic. He is a master of the atmospheric painting.
See more about Robin here
The parents of Benedict Rubbra were both musicians and the family had strong connections with Italy. An aunt was a painter (with work in the Uffizi Gallery and Palazzo Pitti in Florence), so Benedict “grew up” in England along with many visits to Italy.
Annunciation
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Drawing for Sculpture
The sculptor Peter Thursby, who died at the age of eighty, produced his first work in the wake of the second world war, a time when new brutal abstract art came into being, challenging the semi-abstract and figurative. His own early sculptures were hard and aggressive with form sacrificed to surface qualities. In time a more human and humanising modernism took over.
See more about Thursby here
Kate Westbrook’s first solo show was in 1965 at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art in California. Since then she has exhibited in the UK, Europe, and as far afield as Australia. Now living in Devon, the artist finds her subjects in the landscape of Dartmoor, and the sea near her studio. Kate is an internationally renowned singer/songwriter and continues to pursue the dual career of painter and performer.
Big Field, Summer Afternoon
See more about Kate here
Small Pictures
Valerie Barden
Francis Hewlett RWA
Robert Organ RWA
From an Exhibition
29th January to
27th February 2011
The three artists covered a wide variety of contemporary themes and styles. Hewlett and Organ emphased the many colours and tones in landscapes, while Barden brought people to life in towns and cities.
The exhibition featured a representative collection from the excellent portfolio of each artist.
See more here