16th Jan – 17th Feb       Gallery Artists

The exhibition year begins with our Gallery Artist exhibitions. Featuring work by established artists, a variety of paintings, ceramics, jewellery, glass, sculpture and bespoke furniture will be on display.

20th Feb – 24th March              St Felix School Pupils and Teachers Exhibition

27th March – 21st April Alyson Lomas & Lesley Carruthers & Alan Bennett

Alyson Lomas is a semi-abstract artist working in acrylics. Her work conveys a sense of landscape memories, using patterns, texture and colours. The creative process brings to the surface memories of places seen and explored. These thematic explorations work as a collection of studio paintings. It is this process of experimentation that drives her work. The feeling of movement and rhythm in the nature of the paint flowing across the surface is often the starting point for the work. Its propensity to spread, stain and settle in pools of colour and the way in which it creates its own direction allows Alyson to develop the painting in an intuitive way. As the semi-abstract work develops, it takes on its own sense of identity combining a quality of presence and contained energy.

Lesley Carruthers has had a break from exhibiting at Buckenham Galleries for the last year, so we are delighted to welcome her back with a major exhibition of her cast aluminium sculpture. Inspired by the sea, and the elements, Lesley’s works have a dynamism and power, delicate yet showing a resounding strength, whilst retaining serenity and beauty.

Alan Bennett will be joining Buckenham Galleries with a solo exhibition of his work at the gallery. Alan has been painting and drawing trees and landscapes since he was a child, and it is a theme that has continued to interest him throughout his life. Working from life, re-working later in the studio, the paintings can take hours or years to complete. Having recently moved into the area, Alan  has been exploring and paintings some of  the ancient woodlands, the heathland, and the coast around Covehithe and Dunwich.

24th April – 19th May                Honor Surie & Juliet Gorman

Honor Surie first exhibited her ceramics at Buckenham Galleries 3 years ago. Now we are delighted to have a collection of her paintings on exhibition. Her interest in ceramics is apparent in her paintings as texture features strongly in her work. Bold forms and scratch marks heighten the experience. Scenes inspired by the coast and surrounding country side err on the side of realism, though the strong influence of abstraction and her love of the style peaks though.

Juliet Gorman once again promises to delight us with her exhibition of African inspired scenes, and animals. Herds of elephants, guinea fowl and figures grace the gallery. Inspired by her recent trip to Namibia, Juliet will be creating a new range of African figures based on the tribes she visited.

22nnd May- 23rd June              James Dodds, Annabel Mednick & Patrick Elder

James Dodds originally trained as a shipwright in Maldon, Essex and was involved in the building an restoration of traditional East Coast Craft. After leaving the boat building industry he went to study art and Chelsea and the Royal College of Art. Here he found that he increasingly drew on his East Anglian Maritime Heritage. As well as paintings and printmaking James Dodds also publishes his own hand printed books. His paintings of boats have a mythical feel to them, and his lino cuts with their intriguing perspectives create great interest.

Annabel Mednick is a figurative artist who creates expressive paintings full of light colour and atmosphere. Working in oil, Annabel’s canvases are full of texture. This surface brings the work alive, capturing the intensity of the light, the fleeting moment, the pleasures, fears and frustrations of everyday life. Her work explores interiors, the contrast of inside and outside, dark and light and the contemplation of the lone figure.

Patrick Elder is a sculptor who works in a variety of mediums. Sand, sand carving, stone, wood, bronze, aluminium and steel. His work reflects the clarity and peacefulness he achieves by meditation. Through this process Patrick releases any preconceived notions of what he was trying to achieve. Working freely , the work unfolds and develops as the making continues, inevitably the piece is pure abstraction.  

26th June – 21st July                  Jane Hollidge & Brin Edwards

Jane Hollidge will be exhibiting a mixture of her paintings and ceramics for this show. Elegant lines of her pots, contrast sharply with the vibrant streaks of glaze, or silver leaf. Small pinch pots with a velvet glaze create all the colours of the rainbow. Her paintings are abstract canvases with texture implied, layers of colours and streaks of brilliant red, or turquoise dart across the surface.

Brin Edwards is a new artist to the gallery. Working mainly in oils, he concentrates mostly on birds as wildlife subjects.

He is particularly interested in the effects of light, often using light as the starting point for the painting. The juxtaposition of discrete areas of pure colour create simplified forms and patterns; the process of painting is a kind of stripping down and putting back together of the subject which results in something akin to but not a copy of the natural world.

24th July – 15th September        Summer Exhibition

The Summer Exhibition at Buckenham Galleries is always a fantastic display of work by our Gallery Artists talents. Each year, several new artists are invited to take part in the show. Ceramics, glass, jewellery, paintings, sculpture and bespoke furniture culminate in an exhibition not to be missed. 

18th September – 13th October Mike Holtom, Dawn Pretty & Vivien Whitaker

Mike Holtom has sort expression through a series of emotive abstract pieces in oil paint and collage. Often stimulated by the unique landscape and light of Suffolk, but going on to reveal the depth he still finds in his native Warwickshire.  For this exhibition mike will be producing some new work as well and reworking and developing older pieces. 

Dawn Pretty is primarily a figurative and portrait painter in oils, but she also uses batik to express colour and vibrancy. Dawn’s skill at depicting people, their personalities, or capturing a Suffolk scene are quite extraordinary. This will be her first solo exhibition at Buckenham Galleries.

Vivien Whitaker has been exhibiting her beautiful sculptures at the gallery for a couple of years. Working in the last of the English Alabaster, Vivien pushes the delicate material to its limits whilst uncovering stunning and serene figures and forms. Because of the combination of the rarity of her chosen material and her skill, Vivien’s work is highly sort after and we are delighted to be able to represent her in the East of England.

16th October – 10th November             Chris Forsey, Melanie Max

Chris Forsey constantly endeavours to re-appraise his style and technique, which as led him to a mixed-media approach. Exhilarated by colour and surface, Chris enjoys creating textured layers or dry brushed colour that allows hues of complementary hue to glow through. Capturing the essence of the sense of time and place at a specific moment, bringing passion and immediacy to his work.  An ever popular artist at the gallery, this exhibition is bound to reaffirm Chris as one of our most popular artists.

Melanie Max paints in a spontaneous, intuitive marks and colours. Sticks and blades are used to demark features she sees and the resulting scratches and smudges feature heavily in her work. She is inspired where the land meets the sea, exploring the landscape by representing it through different forms of abstraction. Another new artist to the gallery, Melanie’s work adds a new dimension to the work on show at Buckenham Galleries.

13th November – Jan 2011                   End of Year Show

The artistic year at Buckenham Galleries culminates in our End Of Year Show. New artists that have joined the gallery have an opportunity to show their work alongside our established gallery Artists. A wealth of paintings, bespoke furniture, jewellery, glass and ceramics will be on display, with something to appeal to all tastes.