The Luminous and the Grey

 A Multi Media Art Exhibition by a group of Artists and Tutors who teach Further and Higher Education at Northbrook MET. 

Ellie Bond

‘Murmuration from Isolation’

30 weeks ago I started creating stained glass birds, since then my vision for an installation has emerged alongside my discovery and love for this method of making. The process gives me time to reflect, unwind and appreciate being within a particular moment in time.

Similar to a formation of birds, I hope this piece will echo how through recent times we’ve all had a connection. An unspoken signal where we’ve known when to swoop and dive for support to gain strength in numbers through an uncertain journey.

You can become a part of ‘Murmuration from Isolation’ by choosing a bird to fly away with you. Please ask to view my catalogue while the exhibition is on, detailing over one hundred birds for sale.

I am currently teaching on the Foundation Arts course at Northbrook MET with a focus on Mixed Media Fine Art. I feel honoured to guide students through this explorative and important journey, which will in no doubt be the beginning of many creative careers. The spontaneous and raw work being made brings a renewed energy and a great source of inspiration into my own practice as an Artist.

I have a degree in Fine Art Sculpture from Kingston University (2001) which has led me on to work successfully as a Window Dresser, a Mural Painter and an Artist in Schools.

I sell my work on Etsy, as well as taking part in the Worthing Artist Open Houses each year.

Rebecca Ellis-Brown

Since graduating from Camberwell College of Arts in 1999 Rebecca Ellis-Brown has been creating work in ceramics.

Her work often uses prose / poetry as a starting point, and her pieces have been described as “lyrical abstractions in clay”.

She has exhibited her work both nationally and internationally.

Rosie Mortimer 

Rosie Mortimer graduated in Fine Art from the Slade School, and completed her masters degree at Edinburgh College of Art.

She has been a practicing artist for over 25 years.

Architectural and manufactured structures are often juxtaposed with natural geometries and systems. She has created work on all scales, from the almost monumental to the hand-held. Although her work references the human experience, it remains unapologetically abstract.

Richard Walker

The photographs I’ve selected here, are mostly taken prior to lockdown, when I was spending a lot of time travelling to and from work. They arose from a series of playful strategies for exploring my surroundings. I have employed a loose framework of rules to taking photographs; looking up, down and around and selecting at ‘first glance’ whatever has been close by. The subjects have mostly been mundane, banal and ephemeral. My challenge has been to find something of interest and where possible beautiful in these everyday things; to find the ‘luminous’ within the ordinary ‘grey’ world around us. Framing these images, has provided momentary challenges to find new ways of looking, suggesting sometimes abstract qualities and elsewhere metaphorical or rhetorical connotations.

For me this daily practice of looking, in order to collect something of interest from my surroundings, through small creative acts, has come to be a therapeutic habit, which focusses my thoughts away from rumination, depression, stress and anxiety. I’ve produced an illustrated, written account of this practice for the exhibition and along with post cards, I’ll be selling these to raise money for the charity ‘Men Walk Talk’ assisting those who suffer from problems with mental health (https://menwalktalk.co.uk/).

After studying for a degree in Fine Art in London in the early 1980s, I worked as free-lance illustrator and graphic designer, as well as eking out a living as an itinerant musician. However, most of my working life has been spent teaching creative research, art and design history and media studies across a range of disciplines (Fashion, Textiles, Fine Art, Graphics, Illustration, Theatre Arts, Film and Photography) in Art Schools and Universities. This involves encouraging students to develop a knowledge of their own discipline, along with a critical and analytical understanding of how art, design and images relate to a social and historical context. Through lectures, seminars and tutorials, I help students understand how images and objects are made and what they express.

Celine Copsen

Céline Cospen was born in Paris. She moved to Brighton to study Fine Art at Brighton University and received an MA in Fine Art Drawing in 2001 from Wimbledon School of Art.
Céline is predominantly a painter who creates work that connects with memories, exploring childhood and nostalgia. Landscapes emerge from large scale canvases after applying thin layers of oil paint allowing colours to merge. Celine’s work evokes transitional moments, exploring emotional responses through colours and how they shape her understanding of the subconscious.

Rebecca McCardle

Rebecca is a fine artist whose works concern being, cognition and perception. Technically 2D and 3D outcomes involve the utilisation of analogue and digital technologies to transform and point towards specific material aspects of the object, space and place. There is a process of stopping, to slowly think about and through, halting the instinct to rush by without touching the sides, without consideration or contemplation.

Polaroid images reference the 1970’s family photo album, blurred, abstractions of nostalgia materially present, far removed from today’s backlit digital manifestations of haptically accessed binary code.

Bedham (2022) is accessed via Quick Response Code and viewed solely through the digital technological lense of the viewer’s device. The moving image piece is inspired by the oral history of Bedham documented in Honour Thy Father by Lillian Hunt (2006).

Rebecca is BA (Hons) Fine Art lecturer at Greater Brighton Metropolitan College.

Tuesday – Sunday // 10.00 – 17.00 (Closed Monday)