Art at Seven

At Seven, we are keen to promote local artists by exhibiting their work in Seven’s café/bar. We rotate exhibitions on a monthly basis.

Current Artist

Paul Harris

Mother, Sister, Daughter

Women throughout the world give the dominant form and shape to the fabric of society. Women do 70-80% of all agricultural & food production in the world. Women are responsible for well over half the world’s cash income and their role as compassionate powerbrokers and decision makers is gaining long overdue
recognition. We should be continually reminded that ‘girl power’ is older than mere 21st century pop culture.

Women have always been at the heart of any community and it’s women who have their fingers on the pulse of daily life. Relying on their hospitality and organisational savvy has frequently meant the difference between success and failure on many of my travels and photographic projects.

Mother, Sister, Daughter’ is a collection of images from 25 years of travelling to remote, rural and ethnic communities around the world.

“ …women are nowhere passive, helpless, despairing beings crushed by patriarchy. They are sometimes accomplices; at other times manipulators; what they seem to intuit early and everywhere is that the system must be subverted if one is not to bruise oneself by beating one’s head against its stone walls. Goddesses and sorceresses are known, after all, to be capable of myriad transformations and transmutations, surviving by disappearing and by unexpectedly reappearing.” Essay on women by Anita Desai.

www.paulharrisphotography.com

Previous Artists

Walter Lewis

I seek out times and places which offer space for deep reflection. In particular I seek to find a new sensibility which is contemporary yet restores emotional connections back to the earth. In many ways it is a search for contemporary enchantment.

Allenheads is a small village situated at the head of Allendale, a remote valley in Northumberland. It owes its existence to a number of lead mines which were worked in the 18th and 19th centuries and which were clustered around the village. It was a desperately hard life and even today, the spirit of the miners seems to haunt the land, challenging our contemporary disconnection with the world on which we depend.

I spent the first week in April in 2014 on a communal residency by Mimeses North at Allenheads Contemporary Art Centre in Northumberland. I guess the images which I made there are my personal homage to the men, women and children of the mines.

Molly Ovenden

Colour, line and how light affects everything it touches all fascinate me. I love focusing on details. Everything I create is an experiment to gain freedom from my need to be in control.

Much of my work is inspired by this quote, ‘The only real tragedy in life: to not use the gifts and talents that God gave us…’-Unknown. I believe that we are all made to be creative. I don’t ever want to take for granted or waste anything that God has given me—I don’t even want to waste the last bits of paint. Most of my painting is done with acrylic.

Catherine Aldred

Catherine Aldred (Gleisner) BA (Hons) is an illustrator whose interest lies in capturing the world around her through pen, ink and watercolour drawings and printmaking methods. She has a particular interest in the architectural detailing of buildings in both urban and landscape settings.

Catherine studied at Leeds College of Art and Illustration at Camberwell School of Art (University of the Arts London).
Catherine has exhibited widely in both group and solo shows, in spaces as diverse as The Institute of Contemporary Arts and Association of Illustrators in London; the Design Innovation Centre, the Brahm Gallery, Leeds University gallery, the Henry Moore Institute library and Leeds Art Gallery; Kentmere House Gallery, The Mansion House, National Railway Headquarters and the city art gallery in York; Holmfirth Art Week; Headingley Arts & Enterprise Centre; and the Fondation Coubertin, Yvelines, near Paris. Her limited edition Gocco prints are available in Chirpy in Chapel Allerton.

Alex Keating

Alex Keating delves in to the depths of the surreal in his collection of striking prints. Starting life as a sketch, Alex’s striking works are transformed through digital software to achieve his recognisable style.

Inspired by Salvador Dali, Jason Brooks and ‘everyday encounters’ Alex developed his unique style by experimenting with surrealism using variations of shades of grey and black.

Alex believes when creating art ‘it is easy to replicate what you have already done… If you produce something new and exciting it will stand out from the crowd. Good artwork will always draw attention.’

Over the last year Alex has been working on a new set of images using ‘cloud-like textures’. A few pieces of this collection have already been produced; The calm before the storm, Misunderstood, London calling, A bridge too far and the Serene shark.

Joe Rocky Holey

http://www.joerockyholey.com/

Ben Skinner & Nat Searle

Ben Skinner

Ben trained as a dancer at the Northern School of Contemporary Dance and fell in love with Yorkshire. His interests lie in investigating different forms of process and design, whatever artistic discipline they happen to fall inside.

Ben’s latest adventure has been creating ‘Otter and Ink’, a sustainable screen printing initiative. He sources pre-loved frames in keeping with his ethos. He meticulously draws each piece before producing his screens.

He gives character to each animal and paints into many of his prints to complete them.

Some prints are available unframed, contact Ben directly for details.

contact: otterandink@gmail.com

www.otterandink.co

Nat Searle

Nat explores the relationship between strong graphical imagery, colour and scale. Her ideas are distilled into pieces that are beautifully simple.

She runs a multi disciplinary practice so manipulates her own photographs and illustrations to produce artwork for her screens. Inspiration is drawn from her immediate environment with the resulting work often being ‘localised’.

Nat sells her work unframed, but can advise on framing.

contact: info@natsearle.com

www.natsearle.com

Alice Denny

Alice Denny explores the meaning and effect of every day objects of society through treatments of themed images. She anthropomorphises objects with a view to technically exploring and researching different ways of representing them.

She is interested in the potential and pitfalls of the human condition through the metaphors of consumer goods.

Alice uses different approaches in mark making. Stencils are employed as an artificial constraint for the exploration of mark making within them.

Alice plays with the traditional role of framing to break up the unity of her vessels, the intention being to encourage a contradictory sense of falling and balance within the work.

Contact : alice1denny@gmail.com

Jo Dunn

Jo paints mainly in watercolour, but sometimes in oil or gouache. This summer she worked in black and white using Chinese ink. These pictures are a bit different to her watercolours and she’s looking forward to seeing what people make of them at this new exhibition.

“I paint a lot of landscapes, some are expressionistic and some are almost abstract”, said Jo. “Most of my current work is about where I live, near to Gledhow Valley Woods. The woods are a great source of inspiration as they change with the seasons.”

The official opening of the exhibition is on Wednesday 15th October, 6-8pm, all welcome.