This month and next, artists in and around Faringdon are preparing for Oxfordshire Artweeks later this spring: Artweeks – the UK’s oldest and biggest open studios and pop-up exhibition event – always seems to be the event that signals the arrival of summer sunshine, and as the festival begins colour suddenly runs riot across the county, so we were keen to find out what we’ve got to look forward to locally.
Artweeks runs this year from 4-27 May, and each of the three weeks is different. In week one (4-12), we look North to Buscot Park, Bampton, Burford and beyond, in week two, the focus is venues in Oxford and in the third week, and for the late May bank holiday weekend, there’ll be more than 20 venues open in the town centre and the surrounding villages. And remember, while some artists team up to host group shows and others open their studios, all welcome you both to enjoy the art on show and to chat about their materials, methods, and inspiration. You just drop in, no appointment necessary.
Here are our top twelve suggestions to get you started…
Week 1 (4-12 May) Let’s get cracking…
Head to Buscot Park where ten talented artists from Lechlade Art Society will be exhibiting original paintings in both oil and watercolour, reduction prints, wood engravings, and d Faringdon who is the patron of the Society. Demonstrations will be held daily, and the paintings on show ranges from lovely local scenes that will be instantly familiar to Venice and Inda. You’ll also find animals from near and far, both with pop-art-coloured backgrounds and extraordinary realism by John Sirelle. John says, “I have always been fascinated by animals, especially cats. I find tigers in particular an inspirational animal to paint because they not only have their own personality and character, they have their unique stripe patterning too. Whilst trying to capture their undoubted beauty, I try never to forget they are powerful and dangerous creatures.”
You’ll also find striking art by printmaker Brian Britton, many of which are one-off prints. “I am fortunate in having both a Columbian and an Albion printing press in my own purpose-built studio, says Brian, “and spend much of my time experimenting with abstract images in the pursuit of resolving harmonious balances of colour, form, and line. I also relish the technical challenge of producing realistic images, often being influenced by my local rural surroundings in the Cotswolds.”
Take an art trail through Clanfield and Bampton – starting perhaps at the Drew School of Ceramics (Artweeks venue 101) where you’ll be wowed by the range of pieces that can be made from clay. Alongside the tutors’ work, you can see pots and sculpture made by their students (and you may fancy signing up yourself). Next door, perky Silvi Schaumloeffel’s studio is a burst of colour and paint, her bold and playful paintings are richly textured. Expressing the vibrancy of nature as if you are standing in the midst of bushes, hedgerows, and flowering trees, each offers a ‘bees eye view’ of nature’s glory. Over in Bampton village, you’ll find five venues within 200m of the Market Square which his home to West Ox Arts Gallery. Here 12 artists show a variety of art including Trish Ampleforth’s rich blue skies and seas, collagraph seagulls evoking childhood trips to the beach by Sonja Coles and upcycled silver spoon windchimes.
Week 2 (11-19 May) Take a trip to Oxford
If you hop on the S6 into Oxford for the day, there are dozens of venues to choose from within Oxford city centre, including three Oxford colleges and Rhodes House; a great selection of photography by Oxford Photographers in the Mathematical Institute in the Radcliffe Observatory Quarter, and a working letterpress studio at the heart of the historic Bodleian Library (Artweeks venue 245). You’ll also find surprises, like Japanese flower arranging with Oxford Ikebana Study Group (Artweeks venue 223), exquisite papercuts in Jericho’s Southmoor Road (Artweeks venue 227).
Week 3 (18-27) Ten days of art in and around Faringdon
There are two exhibitions in Faringdon town centre this year. The first is a Faringdon Art Society show in the Old Town Hall to make their 60th anniversary – quite a milestone! It’s an event supported by the Town Council and a wonderful chance to see the lovely space inside this heritage building, quite aside from the art on show! However, once inside you can’t fail to be captivated by the views in many styles, both countryside and from further afield, including an exuberant fantastical digital series of The Folly by Anne Mills, each with a tale to tell. And should something catch your eye, a percentage of all sales will be given to The Folly’s restoration fundraising efforts. Note too the different personalities and vibrant characteristics Susy Fuentes’ animal subjects with a modern twist: her birds have a lightness of touch and a touch of cheek in their bright eyes, and, her dogs, often, a ‘selfie’ approach as they ‘nose’ towards the viewer.
The second at Great British Revivals, in the beautiful old haberdashery building that was previously home to La Bobina and Gin to my Tonic, is a ‘taster’ exhibition where you can enjoy a selection of work from a artists within the wider Faringdon who are opening their studios in Stanford, Fernham, Longcot and Bourton near Shrivenham, for example. When something catches your eye, you’ll know where to head next!
Great Coxwell Artists invite you to enjoy their perennially-popular mix of ceramics, stone, glass, painting, digital art, wire, mosaics, jewellery, collage, quilts and wood, take a weekend stroll through their charming village and consume legendary cakes in The Reading Room. Here look out for Faringdon’s Karen Vogt who has recently made a number of stone carvings representing the head of the Uffington White Horse, with its all-seeing eye, and the shape of the hillside around it. “I have lived most of my life in the Vale of the White Horse,” she says, “and The White Horse has always held a fascination for me – I wonder at the artistry of the carving and the connection to ancient times. Having carved out the contour lines in my own work, I then found out that similar patterns of parallel lines were typical of neolithic art.”
“I've also recently carved a 3-D treble clef which is, I think, the start of a new series of sculpture inspired not only by the visual beauty of music transcription, particularly old sheet music with beautifully ornate covers, but also the parallels between art and music. The harmony, balance, proportion, the mathematics/geometry underlying both has the ability to touch your soul.”
Coleshill
Beyond Badbury Clumps, on the estate that once the top secret training headquarters for the secret British Resistance, the National Trust Heritage and Rural Skills Centre is the place to head to see traditional crafts and the contemporary practice of heritage and rural skills. Here too, see bellows crafted by local maker Anne Mills, and stunning unusual jewellery by Chloe Romanos who is inspired by her background in archaeology and her fascination for art history. Each creation has a story behind it, from the winged creations inspired by French Art Nouveau to the textured effects I love to use, that are a reminiscence of the worn aspect of archaeological artefacts dug up from the ground. Using traditional goldsmithing techniques to handcraft pieces, often incorporating colourful gemstones, her delicate statement jewellery are like small pieces of wearable art.
Stanford in the Vale
The Garden Studio is home to four artists working in different media. Look out for Noriko’s characterful ceramics, and delicious wooden kitchen accessories by Jamie, and textile art by Mary-Kei. Alongside the talented Macfarlanes, Kate Daunt is exhibiting extraordinary impressionistic collage, which look like delicate paintings until one gets close: then you can see the tiny stripes and shapes from magazines, perhaps people or words as well as colour creating landscapes in which flowers sway in the breeze and the golden fields shimmers under a summer blue sky.
Over in Fernham Nigel Edwards invites you to his home workshop, to explore his art practice and see his White Horse Terrain collection, pieces inspired by the geography of the landscape to remind us of the bucolic Oxfordshire countryside in which we live. His ‘Sea moon’ ceramics are a sculptural series with glazes that mimic the dynamics of the sea as he considers relationship between the tide and the phases of the moon, and “Time and Tide” pieces reference the beauty of our coastal environments drawing on that raw energy and beauty where sea meets land.
Nearby Longcot, is the stone carving mecca of the Vale! Found next door to Farmer Gow’s, Sharon Rich’s hand-carved stone sculpture and stained glass pieces are inspired by nature, myth and magic.
“All of my work really comes from the heart, from where I grew up in Celtic Cornwall,” she smiles. “Who could not be inspired by the bleak Moorland, granite outcrops and mystical ancient woodlands? Local legend and stories of old are a source of wonder and inspiration: animals and nature also inspire my work, as do wonderful Celtic crosses and ancient Churches with their beautiful stained glass windows.”
Just a few hundred metres away along the B4508, Pat Elmore’s sculpture garden is like a feature of the landscape itself with over 100 sculptures in wood, stone and ceramics on show, almosr a retrospective of a life as a sculptor by this doyenne of stone-carving.
In Bourton near Shrivenham discover a gorgeous welcoming cottage studio, a rural sanctuary below the Ridgeway, where bubbly Tara Parker-Woolway paints instinctively in a spontaneous gestural style creating an ethereal calm and peace in her work. “My latest work is misty abstract reminiscent of landscapes. It’s all based on The Ridgeway and our surrounding area, flooded fields, running streams and magical watery spaces. I love the Ridgeway because of the ancient spaces I walk through, the cathedrals in the woods, and the history I breathe,” she explains. Her wistful organic colours and shapes flow into abstracted land-, sea- and floral-scapes with an enviable energy in which paint, pastel, and charcoal blend to form harmonious layers of colour and rich textures. “I often rotate the canvas as I paint, so that the piece can have no fixed orientation, it is up to the viewer to choose,” she adds. “
“I’m also collecting words at the moment, that I feel carry the vibe of my work… I plan to use then as titles for my Artweeks paintings! Apricity is the warmth of the winter sun; Sussurrus, the soft murmuring or rustling sound of a gentle stream and Quiescent- a state of quietness or inactivity in nature. Zephyr is a gentle breeze, Cynenfin (from Welsh) refers to the place where we belong, where nature embraces and whispers a welcome, and Smurf – well, that’s a drizzly fog or mist and not a little blue character in a white hat!”
In Oxford for the day, there are dozens of venues to choose from within Oxford city centre, including three Oxford colleges and Rhodes House; a great selection of photography by Oxford Photographers in the Mathematical Institute in the Radcliffe Observatory Quarter, and a working letterpress studio at the heart of the historic Bodleian Library (Artweeks venue 245). You’ll also find surprises, like Japanese flower arranging with Oxford Ikebana Study Group (Artweeks venue 223), exquisite papercuts in Jericho’s Southmoor Road (Artweeks venue 227).
Elsewhere across the county, from the traditional to the contemporary and multidisciplinary, there’s something to delight, intrigue and inspire everyone. Look out for Ushma Sargeant’s fibre art (see the Meet the Artist feature in this magazine), fashion and furniture and other art to surprise you, including exquisite papercuts, five-minute portraits, locally-created pigments and sport art ahead of Paris 2024 with an Olympian Artist. Expect the unexpected as traditional boats, Victorian rocking-horses and contemporary concrete creations make an appearance or discover installations that challenge the perception of Oxford as a bastion of privilege and generative art created through computer coding and a cool robot called Stephen. Where will you go first?
For more information on the festival and other venues to choose from, visit artweeks.org
