Figurative Exhibition

Creative arecurrently featuring three popular figurative artists in the gallery, Fabian Perez, Al Saralis and David Cobley.

Each artist portrays the subject in their own distinctive style - Perez ooze’s Passion, Saralis withvulnerability and Cobley conveys solitude.

Perez grew up outside Buenos Aires in a turbulent world of political upheaval, where he had an unusual upbringing. His father owned a number of brothels and illegal nightclubs in Campana. It was this lifestyle that influenced Perez, being constantly exposed to beautiful women who could seduce a man “simply by lighting a cigarette”. We see these “ladies of the night” exquisitely portrayed in many of Fabian’s paintings - memories of his youth and the nightlife he observed.

Fascination with the form, structure and movement of the figure continues to be central to Al’s work. His paintings usually consist of a single figure that is stripped of any narrative reference. Recent works have included a series of images where the figure has been fragmented or left incomplete, resulting in work that is powerful, sometimes confrontational and echoes the vulnerability of the contemporary man.

“These days my work is almost entirely about the figure, and how it is affected by the light that falls on and around it. Like many others before me, I am looking for ways of creating drama, mystery and magic in my work.” And it is this drama and mystery that Cobley manages to achieve in his female portraits – conveying the sense of strong and powerful yet lonely and vulnerable women.

Darren Baker - Olympic Hopeful

One of our newest artists, successful comtemporary realist, Darren Baker has been invited to team up with Lloyds TSB in their role as majoy sponsors of the 2012 London Olympics. His work will be exhibited at The Royal Horse Show at Windsor, The Henley Regatta and Wimbledon, as well as at a range of major arts events such as the Edinburgh Festival. Darren will be showing his Olympic based artwork at the shows. In April he will be attending a huge Olympic events in London that will be attended by major Olmpic names led by Seb Coe.His aim is to be named as an offical Olympic artist.

Please click here to view Darren's work

This week's window - Carol Gillian

This week's window sees the display of Carol Gillian's quirky animal portraits.

Carol was born in Lancashire in 1961 and studied art in Brighton. After working as an illustrator on a variety of projects she finally decided to devote herself to a career as a full time fine artist. Now based in Surrey she paints from a studio in her home and specialises in dramatic and humorous animal portraits.

Carol travels to County fairs for inspiration and often accosts dog walkers when she sees a dog that she would like to paint. Due to the nature of her work (or rather the nature of her sitters) she tends to make extensive use of photographs that she feels best capture the individual identity of the animal in question. These allow her to achieve an informal, composed painting which is both a realistic likeness and a uniquely distinctive interpretation.

Carol prefers to work in oil on canvas. Over-painting thin layers of oils she slowly builds up the image, closely cropping the actual subject to maximize its impact and presenting it against a solid background of vibrant colour. She employs the medium of oil because it adds such depth to each image, enabling her to portray the texture of an animal's coat, the shadows of its muscle tone, and especially its personality which she believes can be conveyed through the expression in its eyes.

Carol's work has been exhibited widely across the UK and Europe and she has undertaken a variety of impressive commissions for individuals and corporations. In 2006 she was awarded first prize in the prestigious DeMontfort New Artist competition.

Click here to view artwork by Carol Gillian