Airs, Reels and Ballads brings together nineteen printmakers, painters and applied artists in a celebration of British Art.

Curated by Christina Jansen of The Scottish Gallery and Simon Lewin of St Jude’s, Airs, Reels and Ballads is an eclectic group of work featuring; Clive Bowen, Chris Brown, David Cass, Jonathan Christie, Amy Dennis, Lizzie Farey, Andrea Geile, Jonathan Gibbs, Peter and Linda Green, Jonny Hannah, Mark Hearld, Joe Hogan, Michael Kirkman, Ed Kluz, Angie Lewin, Michael McVeigh, Charles Shearer, Terry Shone, Emily Sutton.

Clive Bowen

Born: 1943

Place of Birth: Cardiff

The form and function of my work can be traced back to centuries-old pots such as English medieval jugs and early Tamba ware from Japan.

Clive Bowen studied painting and etching at Cardiff Art School before taking up an apprenticeship with Michael Leach at Yelland Pottery in North Devon from 1965 until 1969. In 1971 he bought a small agricultural property at Shebbear, near Holsworthy in North Devon and set up a workshop in the former farm outhouses. His pots are made in the local Fremington clay, a red earthenware clay in use for centuries for traditional North Devon wares. They are almost all wheel thrown with the exception of a few hand-pressed dishes.

Public collections include:
Victoria & Albert Museum, London; National Museum of Wales, Cardiff; Ulster Museum, Belfast; Crafts Council Collection, London; York City Art Gallery; Stoke on Trent City Museum; Winnipeg Art Gallery, Canada; Mingeikan, Tokyo; Mashiko Museum of Ceramics, Japan; Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.

Christopher Brown

Born: 1953

Place of Birth: London

Christopher Brown, born in London, studied Graphic Design at Middlesex University before attending the Royal College of Art, London. Christopher was introduced to, and eventually assisted, Edward Bawden, the master of the linocut. It was Bawden who encouraged him to explore this medium.

During his career, Christopher has exhibited at The Royal Academy and the Victoria & Albert Museum and worked extensively in the publishing industry.

He was recently filmed cutting a linoblock for the new Edward Bawden Gallery at the Higgins Gallery, Bedford. In 2012 Merrell published ‘An Alphabet of London’ and he is currently working on ‘An Alphabet of England’.

David Cass

Born: 1988

David Cass was born in Edinburgh and brought up in the Scottish Borders. He graduated with First Class Honours from Edinburgh College of Art in 2010, receiving the Royal Scottish Academy’s John Kinross Scholarship to Florence. The RSA now holds six of his works in their permanent collection and in 2018 the institution named work by Cass as the most promising created by a practicing artist in Scotland under 35.

Cass is difficult to pigeon-hole as he works across such a wide variety of media: principally he creates three-dimensional paintings using exclusively found objects sourced at flea-markets around Europe – though his practice also involves digital media and sculpture.

Cass has produced six solo exhibitions for The Gallery since 2011. At the age of 22, he constructed his inaugural show Unearthed, which was followed by the more conceptual Years of Dust & Dry in 2013. In 2015 Cass created an exhibition describing Florence’s Great Flood of 1966 (Tonight Rain, Tomorrow Mud) and in 2017 we presented the Venice-themed series Pelàda.

With each new project, Cass’ exploration into environmental themes deepens. His fifth exhibition Rising Horizon in February 2019 explored the issue of rising sea levels, and was a direct step on from Pelàda, zooming out from close examinations of Venice and its rising lagoon, to describe the abstract notion of a rising horizon line. He has recently presented work from this ongoing series at Venice Biennale.

Jonathan Christie

Born: 1969

Place of Birth: London

‘For these four Ghost Ship paintings, I had in the back of my mind a sentence that the mariner and naïve painter Alfred Wallis put in a letter to his patron Jim Ede in 1935: ‘What i do mosley is What use To Bee out of my own memery what We may never see again as Thing are altered all To gether Ther is nothin what Ever do not look like what it was sence i Can Rember…’ Jonathan Christie

Jonathan Christie (b.1969) grew up in South-West London before completing his Foundation at Kingston and his Degree at Maidstone. Jonathan lives in East Sussex and has exhibited his paintings and drawings throughout the United Kingdom. Jonathan Christie’s paintings are inspired by real places and objects, but in the memory, reimagined, conflated, obscured and elucidated. Deploying watercolour, graphite and sgraffito on a gesso board, he will incise, distress, glaze and wash, but always guided by the powerful impulse of drawing. In this way the paintings emerge from change and development, traces of their genesis apparent at completion.

Amy Dennis

Born: 1977

Place of Birth: Warrington

Amy Dennis studied first at Leeds College of Art in the 1990s, later graduating in Drawing and Painting at Edinburgh College of Art in 2000. In 2018 she won the RSA William Littlejohn Award for excellence and innovation in water-based media. She was also the Jolomo Foundation Landscape painting award winner in 2013, and has exhibited with the Scottish Gallery since 2009.

Amy’s painting focuses on Edinburgh and the surrounding countryside, combining still-life motifs with landscapes based on close observation. Her simplified groups of objects reference drawing and measuring tools, which interact in the image with architectural details found on the sites. Her unique style involves a precise interweaving of line and composition, capturing landscapes with geometric precision to terrific effect.

Lizzie Farey

Photography by David Moses

Born: 1962

Lizzie trained in fine art and stained glass before turning to basketry in 1991, learning the first steps from her sister-in-law in North Wales. She planted a field of willow cuttings and her passion for working with natural materials began. Always keen to try new approaches to this traditional craft Lizzie gradually gained a strong reputation for her simple innovative forms, especially the spheres often decorated with catkins or pussy willow.

A cover article in Crafts Magazine in 1997 helped establish Lizzie’s career in Britain and abroad – especially in the U.S. where she started selling her work at Browngrotta Arts. This, in turn, led to numerous awards and offers to show her work in Sotheby’s New York, SOFA Chicago, The V & A London etc. In 2004 Lizzie won the BBC Homes & Antiques ‘Talent around Britain’ award, voted for by the public and sponsored by John Lewis.

In 2007 Lizzie received the Creative Development Award from the Scottish Arts Council (now Creative Scotland) allowing her to pursue her new interest in ‘willow wall drawings’. These new pieces were exhibited in a solo exhibition at Edinburgh’s City Art Centre in 2010 and a large piece was commissioned for their stairwell, spanning two floors.

In July 2011 Lizzie’s willow light installation ‘Heart’ went on permanent display in the newly refurbished National Museum in Edinburgh, and other collections include Priors Court School, Reading; The City Arts Centre, Edinburgh; and The Shipley Art Gallery, Gateshead

‘I take my influences from the Galloway countryside where I live and work. I am surrounded by hills, lochs, larch and heather, the essence of which I try to recapture in my work. I grow my willow in nearby farmer’s fields and collect ash and other materials from the hedgerows. My working life is governed by the cycle of nature.
The work leads me and stimulates me at the same time. The pieces that I forge create a sense of spaciousness and take on a life of their own.
I try to express the complex in as simple a way as possible the natural materials often having a quiet and still effect on the viewer.’ – Lizzie Farey, 2012

Andrea Geile

Born: 1961

Edinburgh based artist Andrea Geile studied Visual Art in Hanover, Germany, and has held residencies in Orkney, Germany, France and Australia. She has been working from her Scottish studio since 1996 and has realised many public and private art commissions. Her outdoor sculptures are made from Corten steel, often grouped with real plants and relating directly to the site environment. They are subtle interventions, merging into the landscape and are often only visible on closer inspection. Among others she has received Awards from the RSA and the RHS Chelsea Flower Show.

Andrea’s sculptures are hand-made from Corten steel; a weatherproof steel that forms a protective layer which stops further corrosion. They therefore have an unlimited life span and do not stain. Andrea fabricates all her sculptures herself. The patterns are first drawn onto sheet metal then hand-cut, assembled like a 3D puzzle and finally welded together. Andrea has worked on several large scale public commissions including Culzean Castle and, most recently, a sculpture commission titled ‘The Chlorophylles’ at the FANK Arts & Heritage site in Lettermore Forest on the Isle of Mull; celebrating the community effort bringing this site back to life.

Public Collections include:

City of Edinburgh Council; The University of Edinburgh; NHS Tayside; City of Albany Art Collection, Australia

Jonathan Gibbs

Born: 1953

Place of Birth: Woking

Jonathan Gibbs shows a series of prints from a variety of wood blocks, most recently engraved into Birch and Holly. He has also made small boxwood blocks, originating from his garden in Humbie, East Lothian. Jonathan Gibbs makes wood engravings for exhibitions as well as working to commission in publishing and design. He studied at Lowestoft School of Art, the Central School of Art & Design and the Slade School of Fine Art, London. He is a lecturer at the University of Edinburgh.

Gibbs has exhibited widely in London and Edinburgh. He works in painting and drawing, as well as being an illustrator and printmaker. These disparate pursuits are unified in formal character, subject matter and aesthetic qualities of line and colour. His work is in various public collections, including the Arts Council of Great Britain, Scottish Arts Council and Government Art Collection, and many private collections.

Gibbs’ interest in printmaking grew out of sculpture and drawing, and he occasionally makes woodcut prints from larger pieces of timber. He studied painting for five years, but was also taught by Norman Ackroyd and Blair Hughes-Stanton, to name but two eminent printmakers amongst various part-time lecturers at the Central and Slade schools.

As a graphic artist, Gibbs has illustrated poetry by Robert Frost, Janet Paisley, Tom Pow, and Alice Oswald. However, his recent commissions have focused upon landscape and environmental themes, to illustrate texts by Mark Cocker, Richard Mabey, and Robert Macfarlane. In addition to literature and poetry, Gibbs has also made wood engravings for the Edinburgh Book Festival, the Royal Opera House, the National Trust and he has designed letter-heads, book-plates and logotypes.

A foundation of drawing underlies all of this work, and Jonathan Gibbs greatly enjoys the synthesis of fine and applied arts in his studio practice.

Peter and Linda Green

Born in 1933, Peter Green OBE, RE, studied at Brighton College of Art and the Institute of Education University of London Having qualified as a teacher he initially taught at a secondary school in East London where he established a thriving school printing press, producing small books and original prints. During this time he developed his own work as a printmaker and was elected to membership of the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers in 1958.

Linda is a self-taught printmaker. Her initial interest in the visual arts began following a period as a senior administrator at the Hornsey College of Art followed by over 20 years as Registrar in the Faculty of Art and Design at Middlesex University. In collaboration with her husband Peter she has developed a range of direct relief printing processes, without using a press, including a method of paper cut stencils which she now uses in her own printmaking. Her work has been exhibited at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, the Mall Galleries and Bankside Gallery in London.

For the last few years, Peter and Linda have worked collaboratively in their process.

Jonny Hannah

Born: 1971

Place of Birth: Dunfermline

Jonny Hannah is obsessed with Folk and Folklore… But not the folk of deep, dark forests, dragons, knights and maidens. Instead, what he calls urban folklore – the stuff that comes from the concrete ground up: The Hexham Heads, the songs of Alex Glasgow, and scrimshaw, amongst many other folkloric happenings.

Jonny Hannah is from Dunfermline. After finding his feet at Liverpool Art School and attending the Royal College of Art, London. He has many passions, including the music of Hank Williams, hand drawn lettering and the films of Jacques Tati.

Jonny Hannah is a freelance illustrator also working in mixed media and printmaking. He has many passions, including the music of Hank Williams, hand drawn lettering and the films of Jacques Tati. He is also obsessed with Folk and Folklore… But not the folk of deep, dark forests, dragons, knights and maidens. Instead, what he calls urban folklore – the stuff that comes from the concrete ground up: The Hexham Heads, the songs of Alex Glasgow, and scrimshaw, amongst many other folkloric happenings. His last big project called Northumberland Folk, explored the length and the breadth of that fine county, all executed whilst illustrating a book called The Story of the Skids, by Richard Jobson. And his new exhibitions – Shipbuilders & Fisherfolk, a homage to the fair town of Hartlepool, found him equally immersed in the history and current happenings of Codheads, West Dockers and all.

Mark Hearld

Photography by A State of Nature

Born: 1974

Place of Birth: York

Mark Hearld has an unbridled passion for making, and his extraordinary creativity leads to collaborative projects with artists and traditional craft makers across multiple disciplines. Collage is central to Mark Hearld’s artistic output, not only as a medium but as a process that is firmly rooted in twentieth-century art. Collage was a technique used by Matisse, Picasso and John Piper to introduce abstraction into their images. Mark similarly uses this means of abstraction, combined with his traditional academic training and careful observation, to inform his creativity.

Mark Hearld studied illustration at the Glasgow School of Art before completing an MA in Natural History Illustration at the Royal College of Art, London. He lives and works from his eclectic and iconic home in York.

The Gallery has enjoyed Mark’s theatrical, creative, immersive world ever since Mark Hearld & Friends debuted in 2009. He is also a great believer in artist collaboration, and he regularly works with other artisan printmakers and creators. Hearld takes inspiration from the natural world, particularly British flora and fauna, the fox and chicken, hedgerow, and songbird. He works across several mediums; his paintings, collage, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics, designs and motifs are drawn from a lifetime of looking at pattern books, popular prints, primitive art and the poetry of Blake.

Highlights of his remarkable career include The Lumber Room held at York Art Gallery from 2015-2017 where Mark curated a room of miscellaneous stored objects and artefacts and in 2018, Mark re-displayed the British Folk Art collection at Compton Verney. York Sculpture Park celebrated Hearld’s career in 2021 which included several large scale sculptures, flat weave tapestry and papercuts.

To view prints by this artist please click here.

Joe Hogan

Photography by Peter Rowen, courtesy of Design and Crafts Council of Ireland and Irish Design

Born: 1953

‘I was drawn to basketmaking because willow growing provided an opportunity to live rurally and develop a real understanding for a particular place. Over the last thirty years, I have found it a very satisfying occupation. I take some time each year to try new ideas and to make new designs but I also value repetition and the fluency it develops. You learn to be patient, to work in the present moment and to not prejudge the outcome. For the past twenty years or so I have become increasingly interested in making non-functional baskets, some of which involve the use of found pieces of wood. This work is prompted by a desire to develop a deeper connection to the natural world.’ Joe Hogan

Joe Hogan is first and foremost a traditional basketmaker and fine artist. He has worked from his studio in Loch na Fooey in West Ireland since 1978. He grows his own willow and harvests other naturally occurring materials such as wood, bark, larch, birch, bog myrtle, willow and catkins, which he incorporates in his work. Joe Hogan is regarded as one of Ireland’s master craftsmen and has gained a worldwide reputation for his work. Joe Hogan was shortlisted for the LOEWE Craft Prize 2018.

You can read our blog story about the thought process behind the making of Joe’s nests in pussy willow and larch here

Michael Kirkman

Born: 1986

Michael Kirkman is a painter, illustrator and printmaker currently living and working in York. He is a graduate of Edinburgh College of Art and completed an MA course at the Royal College of Art, London in 2010. Recent commissions include book cover designs for Faber & Faber and a linocut for the National Theatre.

Michael’s inspiration comes from a need to communicate moments in time that seem strange or extraordinary – to capture what goes unnoticed. Some important influences include Eduardo Paolozzi, Mimmo Paladino, Balthus, Edward Burra and Jonathan Gibbs.

Selected commissions:

National Theatre and Palace of Westminster to celebrate the Queen’s
Jubilee.
Public Collections include:

York Art Gallery; Palace of Westminster

Ed Kluz

Born: 1980

Place of Birth: Suffolk

Ed Kluz, born in Suffolk, studied at Winchester School of Art. Ed is fascinated by the buildings, landscapes and objects of our cultural heritage. He seeks out the eccentric, the lost and the overlooked and in response creates works which re-examine and refresh our perception of the past.

Having made his home in Brighton, he has situated himself in a prime location for subject matter; surrounded by the decaying regency splendour that makes Brighton unique. At an early age he developed an interest in English Romanticism which remains at the core of his work.

As an artist and designer, he embraces many forms of image making, from printmaking and textile design to book illustration and paper collage.

Selected commissions:
Ben Pentreath Ltd; Faber & Faber; Little Toller Books; V&A; Fabric designs for St. Jude’s.

Please click here to view prints by the artist

Angie Lewin

Born: 1963

Place of Birth: Cheshire

Angie Lewin brings her own vision of the natural world to her work. She sees the beauty in all seasons and all manifestations of plants: the ordered pattern of the blooms, the thrusting energy of the emerging buds, the prolific seedheads and the varieties of shapes, colours and habits to be found in meadow and border.

Angie Lewin was born in Cheshire and studied Fine Art Printmaking at Central St. Martins College of Art and Design before completing a postgraduate degree in printmaking at Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts. After working in London as an illustrator she studied Horticulture and then subsequently moved to Norfolk, which prompted a return to printmaking. Angie now lives and works in Speyside, Scotland.

In recent years, her practice has centred around watercolour and she was awarded RWS in 2016. Inspired by both the clifftops and saltmarshes of the North Norfolk coast and the Scottish Highlands, she depicts these contrasting environments and their native flora in wood engraving, linocut, silkscreen, lithograph and collage. Her still life practice often incorporate seedpods, grasses, flints and dried seaweed collected on walking and sketching trips.

In 2010 Merrell published a monograph, Angie Lewin – Plants and Places. As well as designing fabrics and stationery for St Jude’s, which Angie runs with her husband Simon, she has completed commissions for Penguin, Faber, Conran Octopus, Merrell and Picador and has also designed fabrics for Liberty. In 2006 Angie was elected to The Royal Society of Painter Printmakers and in 2008 to The Society of Wood Engravers. In 2010 she was elected to The Art Workers Guild and in 2016 she was elected to The Royal Watercolour Society.

Public Collections include:
V&A London; The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; The London Institute; The University of Aberystwyth; Art for Hospitals and Hospices Collection

To view prints by Angie Lewin please click here

Michael McVeigh

Photography by Stephen Dunn

Born: 1957

Place of Birth: Dundee

Michael McVeigh was born in 1957 in the post-war council estate of Lochee, Dundee located on the north west of the city, one of five children. He left school with no formal qualifications; however he wanted to be an artist and so began, unannounced, going to classes at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design, his presence being challenged eventually. James Morrison, then one of the lecturers, formalised his position and accepted him as a full-time student based only on his outstanding drawings and painting.

Since moving to Edinburgh in 1982 McVeigh became a familiar figure seen regularly working in the city and until a few years ago as a street artist. Life as a street artist brought a certain amount of unwanted celebrity status, especially in recent years, becoming a cult figure sought out by the city’s stag and hen parties, eventually having to limit tourists to ‘one photo only’.

Michael McVeigh is a modern day folk artist who depicts the world around him. He is a participant observer who has created a naïve and sophisticated setting for contemporary life and history. There is something of the medieval chronicler about him; he draws and paints what is there, and what is worth depicting because it is an essential, occasionally quirky, part of human existence.

His works are held in both public and private collections including town halls, pubs, fishmongers and a number of municipal and national institutions.

Charles Shearer

Born: 1956

Place of Birth: Orkney

Charles Shearer was born in Kirkwall, Orkney in 1956 and studied at Gray’s School of Art, Aberdeen and at the Royal College of Art, London, specialising there in illustration. Since graduating in 1983, he has balanced terms of teaching at numerous art schools with working on personal projects.

He journies out into the landscape to draw and paint, and since 1989 he has made annual visits to the Republic of Ireland, attracted by its great expanse of emptiness with its many fine ruined castles and manor houses.These form an ongoing theme throughout his work.

Terry Shone

Born: 1941

Place of Birth: Stockport

Terry Shone lives and works in Whitby, North Yorkshire. After training in ceramics and sculpture at Leeds Arts University and Goldsmiths’ College, London, he was awarded a Rockefeller research fellowship at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

A lifelong interest in the traditional slip-wares produced by country potters has informed his work, as have the myriad examples of lively and idiosyncratic images found in nineteenth-century Staffordshire ceramic models and flatbacks.

Terry’s current work is often, but not exclusively, hard-fired earthenware. Thrown, slab-built and modelled forms are decorated with coloured slips and glazes and may be reworked over several firings using enamels and lustres. These techniques, used in new ways, have enabled the production of work which retains the freshness and immediacy of traditional pottery whilst maintaining a strong contemporary feel.

Emily Sutton

Born: 1983

Place of Birth: North Yorkshire

Click here to see prints by the artist.

Emily Sutton was born in North Yorkshire and studied at Edinburgh College of Art and Rhode Island School of Design. Since graduating in 2008, Emily’s art works, sculptures and designs have been much sought-after. She had a major solo exhibition, Town & Country, at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park in early 2015.

“My work incorporates a love of pattern and detail and is strongly influenced by the landscape and creatures of my surroundings in the Yorkshire countryside, as well as all kinds of weird and wonderful objects found in museums and antique shops. A visit to the American Folk Art Museum in New York inspired an ongoing interest in folk art of all kinds, and I am also influenced by twentieth century illustrators such as Edward Bawden and Eric Ravilious, and the American lithographed children’s books of a similar era.”

Her love of observational drawing and eye for detail sees her transform the ordinary into the extraordinary and celebrate beauty in everyday objects and scenes. Her own home in York is a treasure trove, no surface is clear from personal relics found in antique shops, salvage yards or local car boot sales – these accumulated objects provide Emily with a constant source of inspiration which is both intimate and universal.The magical spin Emily bestows on the world has seen her much in demand as an illustrator. Emily illustrated the children’s classic Clara Button and the Magical Hat Day, for the V&A, which is now in its second edition. She has also worked with Faber & Faber, Penguin Random House and Walker Books.

Airs, Reels and Ballads

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