Devon Open Studios Bursary winners announced

Devon Artist Network with Chagford-based sponsor, Helpful Holidays, is delighted to announce the winners of the Devon Open Studios Emerging Artist Bursary Scheme.

The Bursary is running for the third year and aims to nurture and encourage new talent to take the next steps in their career by helping to fund their participation in this prestigious annual open studios event. We are grateful to our key sponsor, Helpful Holidays, which has grown to become one of the UK’s leading holiday home agencies, for funding this initiative that will support five emerging artists living and working in Devon.

“We have lots to celebrate in the Westcountry – we’re surrounded by dramatic landscape, from moors to the coast, and wildlife in abundance, which provide inspiration for fine art and excellent craft,” said Adrian Innocent, marketing manager of Helpful Holidays.

“This is one of the many reasons why Helpful Holidays likes to sponsor the Devon Open Studio bursary awards, to help a few of the very talented artists we have in the county. We are looking forward to the launch on 7 September and the opportunity to encourage visitors to explore the many excellent galleries and studios which will be involved."

The bursaries are aimed at those entering professional arts practice for the first time, returning to creative practice after a career break or change, or currently taking their art in a new direction. The winners were photographed at 18 Cathedral Yard, Exeter, a former merchants house for sale with Pyne and Lyon.

Applicants must be based in Devon and have registered for Devon Open Studios 2013. The artists chosen to receive Helpful Holidays’ bursaries express their creativity through a variety of media.

Wanda Garner – printmaker – 2 The Maltings, Penton Lane, Crediton, EX17 1HT

Wanda is returning to her own work after 36 years as a teacher. She became hooked on printmaking when she went to support a student on a Double Elephant course.

“I loved teaching and had a long and useful career working, mostly with Deaf children and young adults,” explained Wanda, “However, I feel truly fortunate and excited about receiving the bursary as I see it as a launching pad for a second career that I always yearned for when I trained as an art teacher many years ago.”

Printmaking is part of her journey as an artist. Her early passion for drawing and ceramics has led her to appreciate the varied nuances the act of printmaking brings to her work. She particularly enjoys the fine line and subtle mark making of dry point, experiment with linoprint as an extension of drawing and relish the depth and quality of print surface that collagraph provides.

Her current practice focussing on two strands: A connection with woods, and the fantasy world of the circus. Some of my images are narrative, opening up my imaginary world where beneath the surface there are often hints of magic, mystery or fantasy

Suzy Waldron – mixed media – The Gallery at The Ariel Centre, King Edward VI Community College, Ashburton Road, Totnes, TQ9 5JX

Suzy grew up in Torquay and graduated from University College Falmouth in 2012. Recently, she has been developing her practice as part of her role as Artist-in-Residence at Totnes Art and Design Foundation Course in Devon. In addition to the residency, she has been working as an intern with Plymouth-based art journal Nom de Strip, and am enjoying promoting the art and cultural events that are being held across the region.

Suzy explains, “I was determined that during this year I would push myself out of my comfort zone, and not just treat the residency as an extension of my degree. Though my current paintings are very much informed by my previous work, I feel that I have entered new territory and become more confident in my practice.”

Her main influences during this time have been abstract painters such as Richard Diebenkorn and Trevor Bell. She has recently been introduced to bookbinding, and is hoping to create some handmade books to document her sketches and photographs leading up to her exhibition work.
Her exhibition for Devon Open Studios 2013 will be the culmination of her year-long residency in Totnes.

Jane Hodgson – painter – 1 Hawkmoor Cottages, Bovey Tracey, TQ13 9NJ

Jane is primarily as an expressionistic landscape painter, who will be exhibiting for the first time in 2013.

She has a BA Hons Fine Art, and an MA Arts & Ecology which she completed at Dartington and had a successful career as a freelance graphic designer of 20 years. Now, she wants to devote more time to her own painting, and expand on my desire to communicate her love of this fragile earth, through the medium of paint, photography, film, installation and discussion.

She is currently working on a series of images that all come from her travels to New Zealand, where her sister now lives and is our closest antipodal landmass. Her work is very much bound to her obsession with Antipodes, (two points on the globe that if one passes a needle through the middle of the earth, would be linked), and she titles her work with geographic co-ordinates. Over an 8 year period, ending October 2012, Jane and her sister wrote to each about their weather each day, this increased her emotional and imaginary link to her and their land; this information, together with her on site drawings, paintings, writing, films and sculpture all inform this series of oil paintings that is in progress.

Ama Menec – sculptor – Unit 2, Coombe Park Craft Studios, Ashprington, Totnes, TQ9 7DY (showing with Lea Phillips)

Ama has recently begun a new direction in her work by casting her sculpture in bronze and experimenting with new materials after working as a ceramicist.

She feels she has come as far as she can in ceramics and her work is now far more effectively realised using metal materials, whilst it is still able to keep the colour qualities of ceramics. The crispness of line, and hard smooth surfaces of metal allows her to a to break free of gravity and to liberate the poses. To this end she has invested in a new artistic future with foundry bronze.

Her first buzzard bronze has just been cast and will be followed by several more. She aims to produce a body of work of endangered British wildlife in foundry bronze during the next two years, and to seek representation by a quality bronze gallery. Her aim is to make the transition from the craft world fully into the fine art world within the next two years and to develop her profile as a wildlife bronze artist, via my new bronze website, gallery exhibitions and via open studios.

Naomi Hart – mixed media – Hope Hall, Hope Road, Heavitree, Exeter, EX2 5JN

Naomi is currently working on a participatory artwork and installation on the theme of 'Migration'.  She plans to send out 10,000 bird-shaped postcards all over the world and people will colour them in or write a message and post them back to me, completing their 'migration'.  Each postcard will be tracked and participants can view the progress and exhibition online via a dedicated website and social media.  The installation will be hung to coincide with Devon Open Studios 2013 and will be free to visit. 

Between the launch and the exhibition she will also be running workshops at local schools and festivals on the birds, their ecology and issues of migration, opening the discussion about the links between Art and Science.  After the event, the postcards will be logged, and made into Birdbooks and available to view at future events. 

She has started to create participatory art on a small scale by facilitating workshops for children and adults on community/participatory artworks such as 'Appledore Dreaming' and will be including this in DOS.

Click here for further information on the Devon Open Studios.