A Sense of Place

Judith Cockram, Jane Ellis, Sue Kellam and Ursula Livingstone have painted together for the last five years. Inspired by marks, colour and movement, they approach their work from a shared perspective, meeting weekly in a studio and working outside in the summer months to seek out new and contemporary means of expression through painting.

Judith Cockram says, "My paintings are a response to the spaces I have moved through. They seek to be free, fluid and spontaneous, portraying a ‘sense of’ rather than a representation. Landscapes etch themselves into my memory leaving visual and emotional traces that are powerful starting points for my work."

Jane Ellis’s bold and energetic abstractions are an expression of her feelings about the landscape with its vivid colours, noticing how the quality and intensity of the light changes through the day and through the seasons. She sketches constantly and takes photographs to capture essence and light.
"The temptation to reproduce accurately what we see is so hard to resist. What I strive for is more emotional: to explore, expand, and develop what makes me react so powerfully to a subject, to a view, to a breathtaking instant of light or a wonderful piece of music. I work towards seeing the world with greater intensity, abstracting subjects more economically, and simply seizing the beauty of what’s around me."

Sue Kellam completed a Fine Arts degree in 1993 as a mature student and has continued to paint and draw ever since. All of her work is concerned with an appreciation of and intuitive response to her garden and the natural world around her in south Devon."

Ursula Livingstone says, "A curiosity for capturing the essence of beauty surrounding us in Devon compels me to make my work. The mysterious shape of Totnes Castle above the town, the rookery at Leatside and a flock of buntings spotted over a hedge: I respond with marks that develop into compositions and I play, searching to find fresh ways of responding."

For more information visit http://www.harbourhouse.org.uk/g16-contemporarymarkmakers.shtml