Dominique Grantham * Marion Jones
Sue Kibby * Monika Koch * Sue Pearson
Chris Lessware * Abigail Lipski
Alex Mayer * Jacqueline Merry-Bernard
David Mumby * Sue Owen
Ania Pieniazek * Bob Read
Andrea Robinson
Lynn & Iain Selwyn Reeves - Furzedown Art Studio
Marta Rusin * Peter Solari
Sharon Smart * Susan Spencer Hayter
Emma Sullivan * Valerie Taylor
Barrie Temple * Mo
Margo Random * Susan Rentoul
Glyn Roberts * Wendy Straw
Originally conceived last year in celebration of Sprout’s 10 year Anniversary, one year later the first exhibition will focus on Graphics, Illustration, Printmaking and Photography, introducing new faces as well as familiar ones. This will be followed by an exhibition of work by local Fine Artists, a rich mixture of styles and approaches carefully selected to represent the best talent in the SW London area. Why wait for the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition? Here's something to keep you going.
There should be something to suit everyone and to suit every pocket. We are fortunate indeed to have such a wealth of talent on our doorstep.
Zuzana Bird
I’m a Furzedown-based fibre artist originally from Slovakia. I’ve been punching since 2017 and have sold over 10,000 kits globally. I’ve recently shifted my direction from selling to producing my own art.
I work intuitively, starting with basic shapes to create symmetry and order. I then focus on the background where the magic happens. I use luminous thread and punch in different directions to create movement and shapes that emerge under direct light. This creates a pearlescent appearance, with hidden shapes emerging even more intensely under fluorescent lighting.
I pioneered this style of punching and have inspired other artists to use this technique.
I’ve donated some of my work to charities such as Jamie’s Farm and BBC DIY SOS. Etsy selected my kits for their first pop-up store in London.
Amanda Blunden
Amanda Blunden is a British artist living in South West London where she has her studio.
She has a BA Hons degree in Fine Art where she studied at Leeds Polytechnic and her artistic career has included murals; surface pattern design for companies including Manchester City Art Gallery and Jane Shouls Design; paper-mache furniture and grandfather clocks; and painting. Her work has been featured in leading Interior magazines, Sunday supplements and on TV.
Most recently she has exhibited her paintings at the RWS Contemporary Watercolour Competition at Bankside Gallery, London (2018, 2019 and 2020) and where her monoprint, ‘Night Pool’ also won the Intaglio Printmaker’s Prize at the National Original Print Competition in 2017.
Two paintings were accepted by The Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolour for their 208th Exhibition at the Mall Galleries shown in September 2020
Julia Court
My concerns are with human aspiration and how this is reflected in our behaviour, personal habits and the daily rituals of our lives. I observe people, their possessions, their gestures and the way they dress and the “tribes” they belong to - paying particular attention to moments of high emotion.
My work consists of drawings, photographs, prints, objects or installation which I select, refine and distil to produce work with a quiet and sophisticated aesthetic.
I acknowledge the influence of Mona Hartoum, Mary Kelly and Tracey Emin who all use the vocabulary of everyday, domestic materials and appropriated domestic objects to comment on political and social issues.
Lucinda Denning
Lucinda Denning studied painting at Farnham College of Art and ten years later took an MA at Chelsea College of Art, London.
Lucinda paints in both oil on canvas and gouache on paper.
Some paintings are of individual figures, some of groups and others are more traditional landscapes.
Colour hue, juxtaposition and pattern are important.
Lucinda incorporates elements of fabrics and costumes into her work.
Her rural Wiltshire roots are shown through natural forms.
Lucinda conveys human dymanics through using looks and glances between members of a group.
Lucinda Denning also paint portraits and landscapes.
Tracey Downing
I describe my paintings as small thoughts that travel far, semi-abstract in acrylic and oil paint on boards and canvas, exploring perceptions of memory, place and feeling.
I studied BA Fine Art in the 1980’s and gained an MA in Art Psychotherapy 2009-2012 from Goldsmiths College UCL. I’m a full-time artist now but my therapy training still informs the way I think about my art practice. I’m a member of Winnicott Wednesdays Artist Art Therapist Collective and Oaks Park Printmakers. I’m also an exhibiting member of my local Artists organisation Carshalton Artists and 7Dials Art. I have been a member of Sprout Arts for a year.
In 2020 I joined the Turpsbanana correspondence course.
Yulia Eldina
Yulia Eldina is an aspiring photographer and clothing designer & maker. She first fell in love with photography as a child because ofthe magic of the darkroom, working with her mum and seeing howsilver grains appear on the photo paper.
She took various shortcourses at Central Saint Martins college of UAL to learn and developphotography passion. Shooting and printing exclusively with theanalogue techniques Yulia enjoys simplicity and yet deep focus and
a real human touch throughout this process. Yulia is currentlyworking on a cyanotype and clothing collaboration project wherephotographs is the source of inspiration.
Photo story
Modern life can be fast and time demanding, film photography helps me to slow down, to look, to focus, to
wait, to look again, to look forward to surprises - an unexpected light reflection, an accidental scratch on
the film which creates a new story line or a play in the darkroom with the negatives resulting in a little magic.
Linda Firth
I am a mixed media artist living in South London. I studied Fine Art at Manchester Met' gaining a Masters Degree.
Harriet Fredman
I studied at Wimbledon and Bath Colleges of Art, graduating in 1990. More recently I have also studied silversmithing and stained glass at South Thames College, and screen printing at Putney Art School. I work in many different mediums, making sculpture, jewellery, prints and cut-outs.
Dominique Grantham
Dominique Grantham studied Fine Art BA at West Surrey College of Art and Design
She then went on to do an MA at Chelsea School of Art.
She has been working as a portrait painter and art tutor since then.
Marion Jones
Marion makes abstract geometric paintings that emphasise edges, lines and planes. They often contain transparent and opaque layers, solid and floating forms, matt and shiny surfaces and colour. She has exhibited in a wide range of different galleries and has paintings in a number of private collections.
Sue Kibby
I studied needlework at school to A’level, Applied Social Science at University and after a 40 yearcareer in HR I trained in Textile Art at Morley College. I have always made things from pre-used materials. For example, I love collage.experimenting with knitting plastic waste.
We waste materials skills and time to turn the remains of our busy lives into art.I have lead workshops to pass on new and traditional upcycling ideas to others.
I am a member of Carousel, a London based textile art exhibiting group and Sprout Arts Sew and Chat.
Monika Koch
Monika Koch is a mixed media self-taught Polish artist.
She is mostly known as “monneeshka” for her female portraits and figures.
Monika is deeply dawn to feminine beauty so the female face is her muse.
She loves working with ink, gouache, acrylics and gold leaves. She explores her art with simple brush lines and strokes , block colours and patterns .
Chris Lessware
My painting is abstract; it contains no symbolism, no disguised representation, no consciously emotional content, no “reality through a prism”. It is solely concerned with the interaction of paint, charcoal, pastel with surface. In my view, there is no requirement to “say” anything in a picture that can be put into words – paint has its own language, in the same way that music has.
The question “What does this painting mean?” is therefore one that I regard as redundant. It means what it is in itself, as well, of course, as having (or lacking!) a meaning in a social-historical context.
This is not to say that I am hostile to representational painting; rather, I see no point to it other than that, that might be equally or better served by abstraction.
My pictures, then, are concerned with colour, structure, movement and stasis, texture. I am interested in contrasting textures, colours, structural factors: single central image or dispersed elements? Main image “contained” or going to edge, and by implication, continuing beyond? Blurring and concealment, as against sharpness of image; direction of mark/brush stroke; shiny or matt areas, when seen from front or oblique angle; effect of bleed of pigment; the cut of black around an image or part of one; the role of chance. I think the examples I have attached contain, when taken as a whole, all these factors.
These concerns and practices, I think, are central to all painting, abstract, representational and figurative and are perhaps obvious; nevertheless, they are perennial.
My paintings are produced, for the most part, flat on the floor; I do sometimes make preparatory sketches, but often do not – colours are sometimes mixed on a palette, but more often, on the canvas itself. I have tended to use certain sizes repeatedly; 40*30 inches (example, New Rose) until recently. Now I prefer a square – 100*100 cms (the other images). Maybe the smaller size makes for a more central image, the square for more dispersal.
As for titles, they are a convenience, to avoid using “Untitled” or dates and numbers. I often use song titles or TV programmes or personal events; I try to avoid referring to any identifiable feature of the painting itself, or accidental resemblance to some object from the real world.
I believe that I work within the tradition of Abstract Expressionism and am happy to accept that label, with the proviso that there is no implied “spiritual” or emotional driving-force or objective. In my view, the paintings should be regarded as material objects with such-and-such a pattern of shapes, colours and textures. Many artists are, I believe, blind to the “meaning” of their own works – it is the job of critics to explain them.
In summary, I see my work as traditional, possibly reactionary – painting on canvas – not relevant in any political sense; concerned with issues tackled continuously since the 50s at least, but never solved. Briefly, influences; Appel, Jorn, De Kooning, Lanyon, Diebenkorn, Mitchell. Of living artists, Albert Oelhen and Vaida Carvanho.
Abigail Lipski
I am a London based artist working across different mediums. My paintings depict recurring characters and fictional rituals within surreal landscapes. I also create sculpture and installations. My practice illustrates a layering of history, fractured memory and myth influenced by nature, music, writing, powerful female icons and my birthplace, Epping Forest. Collating photography, collage and sculpture I re-contextualise visual abstracts from my surroundings, popular culture and within memory. I like to imagine my work as escapist, dream-like and as a portal into which the audience can make intriguing and often humorous otherworldly discoveries.
My work has been exhibited in group shows across London at Flowers Gallery, Graham Hunter Gallery, Oxo Tower Bargehouse and the Truman Brewery.
Alex Mayer
I have lived in Balham for a long time.
Originally trained at Camberwell College of Art, I have taught Textiles for many years at Morley College.
Alongside Textiles I have always loved to draw and am managing to combine drawing with stitch with these first “postcards” from Tooting Common, I have especially enjoyed working on a small format and painting the frames ( thank you Howard Hodgkin! ).
During the pandemic while walking my dog Bonnie, I have come to so appreciate the different areas and wildlife of Tooting Common from the woods, open spaces, smell of the Gorse, to the lake and the ducklings.
The “postcards” are a Thank you.
Jacqueline Merry-Bernard
Covid II ‘ is part of a series of paintings expressing my desire to reflect on time and climate change. Subterranean depths record our history through the remains of fossils and debris and as a member of various environmental movements for the past forty years I am very aware how the message of climate variation and our gradual destruction of the resources of life have been ignored.
When we observe fossils we tend to admire their aesthetic quality but forget that they are relics of life on Earth millions of years old and far surpassing our human existence.
David Mumby
Artist and Teacher.
Painter, illustrator, ceramicist
I trained as a ceramicist, and have taught art and continued my own practice for the 40 years since.
Sue Owen
Sue taught Art Textiles in F.E for many years before retiring and having the time to focus on her own work which demonstrates her love of colour, pattern and texture in textiles.
Starting points are usually experimental mark making, the use of collage, or combining mixed media techniques. Sue draws inspiration from the natural world and is also interested in architectural forms.
Work is constructed of layers of hand dyed and printed fabrics which are pieced together to create depth of colour and spontaneous imagery. It is the materials themselves which indicate the direction the work will take, and often ideas change as Sue introduces new fabrics or recycles pieces. The addition of hand printed sheer fabrics used as an overlay generates interesting colour variation to Sue’s work which is further enhanced with hand and or machine embroidery.
Sue Pearson
Ania Pieniazek
Born in Katowice, Poland, Ania studied at Silesia University in Cieszyn, getting a degree in Art Education in 2003. In 2005 she permanently moved to London in order to persuade her dream career as an artist painter. She had her artworks exhibited in various venues and galleries in London and beyond.
' Although the time spent at the University was very influencing and special, I prefer to call myself a self-taught painter, because I don't really believe in 'art degrees'. What makes me an artist is a passion for art, it's an inner compulsion to be creative. I have been creative since my mum put me on the potty and gave me some crayons and paper to keep me busy. My first oil colours were given to me by my father on my 13th birthday.'
'I always loved to be surrounded by beautiful things, people and scents. Creating the art is a joy of my life. It is the most satisfying activity I can imagine. Working on canvas in oil or acrylic, I like experimenting with colours and shapes. I try to convey on canvas pictures formed by my imagination. Most of my works are based upon a general figurative art, which I only use as a pretext to play with objects and colour.'
Bob Read
Apart from two years spent on a Scottish Island, I have always lived in London and coupled with childhood memories have drawn inspiration from both worlds. I left a career in commercial architecture, to study painting at Chelsea School of Art and Kingston College.
My visual language has evolved from my time spent in architecture. Leaving me with a legacy of an appreciation of structure, counteract with a reaction against the precise and rational. As a result the work tends towards ambiguity but with an embedded sense of form while the content attempts to reveal the spiritual and the subconscious.
Andrea Robinson
Andrea Robinson works with printmaking, text, installation, film, performance and poetry. She is a founder member of print collective The Friday Group, gallery artist at Yorkshire's Water Street Gallery, and a member of the Printmakers Council. She exhibits regularly at venues throughout the UK and internationally - most recently in Fringe Arts Bath Festival 2021 and at the Cervantes Institute in Bordeaux.
Her prints and artist books are held in private and public collections and archives, including Scarborough Museum, Tate Britain, the British Library, Chelsea College of Art, and the V&A. She was Sprout Artist in Residence in 2020.
Marta Rusin
Kociara is the pseudonym of a Furzedown-based surface pattern and graphic designer, Marta Rusin.
Born in Poland, Marta arrived in London in 1999 with the intention of staying for a year, but soon found that London and its vibrant energy have an irresistible pull. Whilst her degree was in linguistics, she realised that being in London could be a new start to follow her passion in art and design. Soon, she enrolled on an Art and Design course at the London College of Fashion to pursue her interest in fashion illustration. This was followed by a more technical course in 3D design and animation. Eventually, Marta’s career took a turn to work as a graphic designer for sectors like publishing, marketing and finance, while she continued to pursue her passion for illustration in the surface pattern deign field.
Marta had her designs licensed by an independent German luxury scarf producer; and also had a licensing deal with the American fabric company Robert Kaufman Fabrics. Her ‘Cleopatra’ design was printed on a wallpaper to the adorn walls of a New York club. She also has many designs made into products like clothes, lampshades, notebooks, cushions and bags which are made and sold by independent traders on Etsy, Not on the High Street and other platforms. Her designs are purchased by many individual clients for their personal clothing or home décor projects, mainly through her online store on Spoonflower where you can buy her fabric and wallpaper. She also sells on other online marketplaces like Redbubble, Society6 and UK based Contrado, where the designs can be purchased on ready-made products.
Marta offers bespoke custom design / illustration work as well as courses in surface pattern design and monetising the designs on online print-on-demand marketplaces. She is now also offering silk accessories and leather handbags made with her unique prints.
Iain Selwyn-Reeves - Furzedown Art Studio
Iain has lived in Furzedown for almost 20 years and is a full-time interiors photographer by day.
He has developed a distinct range of photographic artwork. Each piece starts with an original high-resolution photograph of a location, which is then digitally edited to create the final artwork.
Iain’s work includes many South London locations. Tooting has of course been of particular interest and features in several prints.
Iain also enjoys the more traditional approach to photography, which can be seen in his landscape images.
Lynn Selwyn-Reeves - Furzedown Art Studio
Lynn is a Furzedown based freelance photographer and illustrator working under the name of Furzedown Art Studio with her husband Iain.
Lynn’s artwork includes both digital creative photography and hand rendered line drawings of the local area, homes, initials, designs for wedding and personalised stationery, children’s name and nursery illustrations.
She enjoys the freedom that digital photography allows, to use the editing process as a medium for abstracting everyday objects or locations to give a new perspective.
Lynn creates natural portraits for families, headshots and content shots for websites, social media and business profiles, capturing workplaces in a relaxed contemporary style reflecting the culture and personalities of those who work there.
Lynn also designs a range of a small gift items based on her prints and drawings.
Commissions and enquiries welcome.
Peter Solari
Landscape and the environment have always intrigued me, and the light, colour and form of the landscape can be both subtly beautiful and awe-inspiringly powerful. I am concerned with recording moments in time, the ever changing features around us, the fleeting moments that bring back memories or touch our soul.
The three photographs I have submitted for this exhibition are all moments on Tooting Common, captured over the past fourteen months. From this February through to the gentle warmth of March.
Sharon Smart
Sharon Smart is a visual artist and designer who graduated from Camberwell College of Art in 1992. Working to commission alongside her own personal projects, she has also been involved with a number of creative community projects and events. Sharon's work always begins with observational drawing and it is fundamental to her practise. She investigates an array of subjects ranging from intimate portraits to the often overlooked elements of urban life. By contrast she loves to escape the city and explore wild landscapes in her sketchbooks. Contrasts of light and shadow have always been important in her work and she is drawn to a heightened sense of drama.
Susan Spencer Hayter
BA Hons Fine Art Painting, BSc Hons Botany & Zoology
An Environmental painter and printmaker,based in south London, graduating in Fine Art Painting from Wimbledon School of Art in 2006, but having worked and studied, previously, as a biologist and in education. Current practice combines a passion for the natural world and environmental issues, with artistic concerns, in order to explore the boundaries between the two.
Exhibiting both here and abroad, works are currently held in both British and international, public and private collections
Emma Sullivan
A self taught embroidery artist from Tooting. I am currently studying at the Royal School of Needlework for a Certificate and Diploma in Needlework in the hope of gaining some more skills and adding more depth to my work.
I love creating really bright colourful pieces but lockdown has lead me to local parks and green spaces with everyone else! I’ve walked the “Tooting Common loop" nearly everyday and my partner came up with the idea of making a map.
I’ve now completed a number of parks all over London for myself and others. Sewing takes me on a journey around the park which I find relaxing and for that reason I think everyone should give embroidery a go.
Valerie Taylor
Trained over many years in various Adult Education establishments including Folkestone Arts Centre, St Ives School of Painting and Morley College, I began drawing with charcoal progressing to painting in oils. In later years I have been working in watercolour, highly suitable for working outside on hillsides in lovely landscapes.
Of late I have returned to oil, via acrylic and enjoy experimenting with various kinds of mixed media, working in my studio from sketchbook drawings and allowing my imagination to take over from the literal. I have several paintings on the go and drift from one to the other, until, hopefully, the time comes when it feels right to just leave it there.
Painting is both a struggle and a joy, a journey and a constant state of learning how to do it!
Barrie Temple
‘Born in Cheshire, he studied at Edinburgh College of Art before moving into the advertising business, where his work in design provided structure and discipline to his artistic development in his formative years. Winner of the Royds prize for painters working in advertising, his work now hangs in Public & Private Institutions – Ministries, Banks, Universities, Private Members Clubs - as well as in many businesses, hotels, hospitals, restaurants and private collections in Europe - including Italy, France, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, and the UK; USA - from Florida to California; plus in Canada, Asia, Australia and New Zealand. He has made a speciality of painting in series, of subjects and moods.’
Pratikchha Thapa
Pratikchha Thapa is a figurative artist and works mainly with paints, drawing materials and mix-media.
Her works are to her a means of observations, contemplation, and acknowledgement of simple moments in the everyday life. People, spaces, moments and narratives, and the interpretation or construction of these things are also some things that intrigue and motivate the artist to paint and explore more.
Pratikchha was born in Nepal, and now works and lives in London. She studied painting at Wimbledon College of Arts (UAL). She was shortlisted for the Prunella Clough Prize (2016) and the Clyde & Co Art Award (2017).
Mo
Mo is a conceptual and non-conceptual Artist living and working in South London. A Central St Martin’s graduate, she has been studying and practicing art for over twenty years. She works in 2d and 3d utilizing a broad mix of media; from steel to sound paint to performance. She is particularly
interested in portraiture, narrative and the human condition. She also writes.
Margo Random
Margo Random discovered art following a career as a musician, songwriter and actress. She studied at Putney School of Art and is passionate about making art, especially oil, watercolour and printing. Margo has shown her work at solo and group shows including many at Sprout! Her ‘Tooting Bec’ limited edition prints were acquired by London Transport Museum and ‘Beach at Carbis Bay’ was longlisted for the Jacksons Painting Prize 2021.
Margo’s work encompasses landscape, still life and portraits with an abstract sensibility and a love of colour derived from her travels, her London home and her origins in New York.
Susan Rentoul
Susan Rentoul studied graphic design at Kingston Polytechnic and is a practising graphic designer with her own business, based in Furzedown. She uses ephemera from journeys and life to create landscapes and still lives in collage and paint. These are informed by experiments with various media that she made in life drawing classes in Tooting and at Putney School of Art. Lockdown and travel restrictions focussed her gaze towards more local subjects, such as Tooting Common and bowls of fruit at home. Sue’s other passion is swimming and she is often drawn to the sea as a subject so that she can swim and then paint!
Glyn Roberts
Glyn Roberts is a Furzedown based photographer who loves taking photos of anything interesting and eye-catching but particularly black and white portraits as he is fascinated by faces and the stories they can tell the camera.
Glyn's photographic journey began relatively recently but it is a thoughtful one that he hopes he can share with as many people as possible
Wendy Straw
In1986 I gained a BA Hons Degree in Fine Art at Ravensbourne College of Art.
I became interested in Screen Printing which I developed further in a 2 year HND Course in Surface Decoration at the London College of Printing.
Over the years I have worked with Textiles and Dyes making Textile Wall hangings in Silk and Cotton. My recent work has referenced Japanese Art and Chinese Scrolls are a particular influence.
In my most recent wall hangings I have used the Photogram process on fabrics using UV sensitive dyes. The inspiration for these are forms found and collected in nature such as seed heads , grasses and flower heads.
