Colourful group show, 'HAPPEA', consisting of personal work made by Silas Money, Benjamin Phillips, James D Wilson and Ben Newman, will be displayed at The Crown throughout November. Outside of their formal jobs in design, education and illustration, each artist's personal practice provides an outlet to create outside of commercial expectations and as a form of self care. This space to PLAY keeps them connected to their deep need to be curious, awkward and happy (HAPPEA is how Ben's youngest son would write 'happy').
With a background in film and animation Silas Money’s work has expanded into sculpture, ceramics and most recently painting. Silas’ approach to making has an instinctive and playful irreverence where he aims to make work that embraces imperfections, accidents, awkwardness, humour, frustration and absurdity.
James Wilson’s work explores the relationship between landscape and abstraction and memory. In his paintings, reduced gestures that speak of mountains, valleys and coastlines are interrupted with sudden cuts, hard-edges and mismatches. This mimics the way memories of places are prone to abstraction and yet our sense of those places remain familiar and vivid.
Award winning illustrator and author, Benjamin Phillips creates ceramics, drawings and paintings for a wide range of commercial and personal projects. He has illustrated Michel Rosen's latest book, 'One Day' based on the true story of an escape by members of the French resistance from a rail convoy bound for Auschwitz.
Ben Newman is an illustrator who works predominantly on children's books, toys and games. Outside of his commercial practice, he paints "as a cathartic process through which he reconciles fragmented elements, uniting them into a cohesive whole and seeking balance in the composition."
Katie has a business in burlesque corsetry, mostly bespoke corsets and costumes for performers and showgirls.
Taking up painting in recent years she draws on a wealth of theatrical styles from her burlesque and fashion background, using traditional techniques in her oil paintings. They are infused with a dark allure, using characters and costumes to create contemporary portraits.
“My love of historical paintings has been a big influence for me, I aim to create portraits with a traditional style whilst using the vibrant and diverse characters that I come across. Working in the burlesque and fetish scenes there is a wealth of inspiration for me”.
Tattooed models, performers and subjects with an unusual style or personality become her muses, making her paintings an enchanting reflection of modern society.
Anna Kopach is an artist from Ukraine who has been living in Battle for the past few years. She finds inner peace in painting, draws inspiration from human stories, and transforms emotions into her artworks.
“This exhibition is a doorway into my inner world. In moments of solitude, I find space for reflection, and creativity becomes my path toward light. I invite you to enter my perspective, to feel it, and perhaps to recognize something of your own within it.”
I’m Juliette Wills, a self-taught photographer, just-breaking-through artist, decent ceramicist and award-winning writer. Rather than pick one thing I’m good at, I decided to do them all.
I’m pulled in by colourful people, a brightness bursting through a miserable day and the strange allure of decomposition. Marine Court, photographed from the back, is my favourite image; its decaying façade is beautiful in my eyes; the contrast with its bright white ship-shaped front is incredibly striking, a real Jekyll & Hyde structure.
People Places Things is Holly’s largest solo exhibition to date and will feature as part of the Coastal Currents arts festival. Expect to see a colourful medley of both impressionistic and lifelike portraits, landscapes and still lifes. Also on display and available to purchase will be a number of ceramic and collaged creations, greetings cards and art prints.
Greg Stevenson is the creative director of Pinpoint Studio, a Hastings-based design agency. This exhibition is a collection of the drawings he does in his spare time. They are drawn from his head with no brief, fast and loose, using brush and ink, and in defiance of his inner critic who says things like “Can’t you just draw a house or a dog or something?”. A raspberry to that man.
Local visual artist Adam Dando shares with us his latest avenue of enquiry, abstract minimalist colour-field paintings. With some of his most resolved work to date, expect paintings that are calming, elegant and timeless.
Paul lives locally in the Battle area and has been drawing cartoons for as long as he can remember. Over the years his cartoons have been published in numerous newspapers and magazines, which include Punch, The Oldie as well as the satirical magazine, Private Eye. Paul has been regularly published in Private Eye since 2011, where his work has also appeared in their ‘best of’ compilation annuals.
I paint/draw on paper with a mix of mediums.
My process involves transforming the original image by tearing/cutting and building up through layers into an altered image with glimpses of earlier marks and textures visible beneath the surface.
I am interested in this transformation and the build up of texture this produces.
It means that nothing I work on is beyond repair and is always salvageable.
This ethos informs my approach to making: every mark is part of the conversation and every image holds the potential for renewal and change.
Subject, form, colour and texture are all suggested by my surroundings.
I work from my studio in Hastings.
Harry Cockburn is an environment journalist, writer and artist living in Hastings.
His painting and writing both seek to explore human relationships with the natural world. Painting and drawing the various places he has lived has been a vital way of forging a closer relationship with the area and also how we interact with the forces of nature. His art aims to explore how the worsening environment emergency is informing our relationship with the landscape itself, with art and wider culture.
He has previously painted and exhibited artwork in St Leonards, the Wye Valley, the Forest of Dean, Brighton, and with Extinction Rebellion and local art groups in Hastings.