TATE

JJ ADAMS

The son of a baptist preacher, JJ emigrated as a child from Plymouth in the UK to Cape Town in South Africa in the early eighties. Adams spent much of his youth around the studio of South African contemporary landscape artist Derric van Rensburg, where he discovered his love of bright colour and `graphic`art. JJ studied graphic design at Cape College whilst working as an apprentice in `Wildfire Tattoos` a busy tattoo studio in central Cape Town while also working part-time as backstage crew for international bands visiting South Africa after the end of the Apartheid era. JJ finally returned to the UK in 1998 with the aim of becoming a tattoo artist. After a number of frustrated years living in London and working in Camden Market struggling to make ends meet, JJ moved back to Plymouth to further study commercial printing at the Plymouth College of Art and Design. Over the next several years he worked as a graphic designer in the South West of England and then moved into sign making and advertising. In 2009 after selling a few of his acrylic paintings through a local gallery he decided it was time to move back to London and finally pursue his art career. Adams uses a range of mixed media in his work from spray paint to hand painting acrylics, screen printing, collage and digital matte painting as well as photography. He admits being influenced at art school by artists like Norman Rockwell, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol and Sir Peter Blake and more obscure artists such as Guy Peelleart, Hipgnosis and Storm Thorgerson and lowbrow artists like Coop, Jim Phillips and Graham Coton who was a World War II comic book artist. JJ Adams works from his studio overlooking the Thames Barrier in Woolwich, South East London.

Rennies Gallery' Bold Street, Liverpool

Sherree Valentine Daines

      Sherree Valentine-Daines was born in 1956 in Effingham, Surrey. She was not always an artist, at 18 she began work as a legal secretary in London. Realising the quality of the idle sketches she drew on her legal pads, it became clear that she had a talent for drawing.

        Valentine-Daines studied fine art at Epsom School of Art for 4 years, leaving in 1980. It was during her time at art school that she developed an interest in painting figures. After graduating, she spent the first summer in Cornwall, painting villages, harbours and beaches and most of all the people. She has also been known to paint the busy streets of London, especially showing passers by hailing cabs, looking around markets or leaving the theatre.

        Sherree has had considerable success in her career, her colourful impressionist paintings appeal to a world wide clientele making her a favourite with many celebrity collectors including members of the British Royal Family. Many famous people have sat for her including Joanna Lumley and Michael Parkinson. She was televised painting the England cricket team and was also the official artist to the Rugby World Cup, producing commemorative portraits of Martin Johnson and Jonny Wilkinson. Her recent projects have included the publication of ‘First Impressions’, a stunning hardback book celebrating her life and career.

       Her work has been widely exhibited, selling through many of the top London Galleries and at venues including - The Royal Academy, The Barbican, Lord’s Museum,
The Royal Society of British Artists, The Olympic Games Exhibition, 
The Royal Institute of Artists and the Tate Gallery.

Intricate Handmade Fantasy Creatures by Ellen Jewett

Born in Markham, Canada, Ellen Jewett took to shaping three-dimensional forms naturally at a young age. To Ellen, sculpting has always been about life, biological narratives and cultural statements.

“Each sculpture is handmade and painted with no more tools than fingers and a paint brush. By virtue of this primal process, each creation is unique and produced in a fluid and intuitive manner. The process begins with a handmade metal armature over which light weight clay is sculpted. The painting is done with acrylic or oil pigments and the embedded eyes are glass or acrylic. When complete the whole piece is glazed to intensify colour and strength.”

deviantART                Website

The Shameful Truth About Liverpool's FACT

by

Infantile Disorder

This article was written for Liverpool's 'Nerve' magazine. 

When the Liverpool Echo revealed that the FACT - the heart of the city's 'Ropewalks' cultural quarter - had axed paid staff and replaced them with volunteers, it provoked a wave of revulsion at the charity's decidedly corporate-style practices. Social networking accounts associated with FACT were bombarded with critical comments, and three protests have even been held outside. But the story of FACT's mistreatment of workers goes far deeper than that. Since opening eleven years ago, it has gone from being an organisation which paid all workers, to one which is now entirely dependent on exploiting the desperation of a revolving door army of volunteers, whose free labour helps maintain the living standards of the paid staff almost entirely based on the top floor. 

The eleven redundancies were made at a series of meetings with executive director Iona Horsburgh. Called in one by one, the front of house staff were presented with a two page document headed "Proposed model" - clearly intended for internal discussion amongst the higher ups. But at this stage it was not a proposal; it had been decided. It was non-negotiable. In the euphemistic words of the document: "The job title of Gallery Assistants would be discontinued".

more:

Judy Gibson ~ Decorative painter

http://www.leolicensing.com/artist_detail.php?id=1

A native Texan, Judy Gibson is a multitalented artist working in a wide range of media involving oils, watercolors, and prisma colored pencils. Her subject matter is equally diverse, covering everything from local scenes of Texas bluebonnets, to exquisitely detailed wildlife, exotic, and equine portraiture.

Upon earning her art degree from East Texas State University, Judy began a nineteen-year career in painting for an art company. She produced original paintings that were sold in art galleries throughout the United States. She also worked with an art publisher for seventeen years who published her art prints in limited and open editions collections. Judy enjoyed a very successful licensing career during that time, with many manufacturers using her beautiful artwork on different products for the home decor market. As well as private commissions, Judy has produced many artworks for many well-known corporations, and has produced featured covers for the Texas Quarter Horse Association Annual, Arabian Visions, Equine Images, United Directories, Inc., and The Appaloosa Journal.