Visiting Buxton Gallery
During my time in the Peak District I visited the small town of Buxton. Near the Pavillion Gardens, 23 acres of ornamental gardens, is the Art Cafe and Gallery in the Gardens which contains a large retail area where you can purchase lots of the arts and crafts. In the gallery a few pieces stood out to me with particular relevance to my Final Major Project, my India Brief…
Artist Research Rob Wilson
The multimedia paintings and drawings by Rob Wilson captured my attention because this is the type of colourful reportage work I want to create in reflection of my time in South India. Rob is a successful local artist to Buxton. In 2007 he received a Commendation for his painting ‘The Audience’ at the highly respected Derbyshire Open and went on to win the Best Artist Award at the Buxton Festival Fringe. He works mainly in mixed media, taking his inspiration from the dramatic architecture and moody landscapes found in and around the North West. Rob is heavily influenced by graphic and textile design, which helps to create his unique pieces; typeface and stitching often sit side by side with traditional media.
Tel: 01663733941
rob@robwilsonart.co.uk
www.robwilsonart.co.uk
FB /RobWilsonArt
Dave Butcher’s Photography
The reason I am now, in retrospect, able to identify the photographer is because of the stickers he has used on his clear packaging over the framed photographs. This is clearly a really useful marketing tool so I need to get started designing my own branding for stickers because they can be so easily added to work and packaging! As well as being stuck around streets and different public places to get attention. The photography pieces themselves really inspired me further to include a photography element to my Final Major Project India Brief. I have hundreds of photographs from my trip there and although lots are probably only interesting to me, there are many I think that will work really well as a piece of stand alone work and also work as a set- in order to do this I need to organise my photographs into sets and be selective with only the most visually interesting images. All of Dave’s images were black and white, this would be an interesting aspect to try out but considering my work and India itself is so colourful, vibrant and full of life, I am not sure black and white would really make the most of embracing my experience there!
I’m Looking Good by Longmate in the Art Cafe
The cow work included above is a oil on canvas piece by Longmate, one of the High Peak Artists, and was being sold for £750 at the time of my trip to Buxton. I thought this was an interesting thing to record because although I really liked the vibrancy and colourful nature of the painting, as well as the interesting brush stroke technique, it was not at a huge size and it looked doable. It is good to see paintings like this because it really inspires me to create my own paintings, something I love to do anyway but I don't prioritise as much as I should, and see how much their monetary value could be!
