Do Geese See God? – the upcoming RAG exhibition at Riverside Studios, Hammersmith, 25 March-11 May 2025 follows a busy and productive 2024. In our January newsletter we look forward and back, reflecting and anticipating.

 

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Discourse by Peter Blegvad, December 2024

Writing on Palindromes 


Image: 'Michaelangelo’s God with Geese' by Stephen Williams

'Do geese see god?’ is a palindrome, a symmetrical word-object which reads the same backwards as forwards. Early examples of the form date back to the 1st-century CE (e.g. the Sator Square). Palindromic words (e.g. kayak, radar, deified) and phrases (e.g. Marge let a moody baby doom a telegram, or stiff O dairyman in a myriad of fits) seem to be invested with a kind of magic even when deficient in obvious or ordinary sense. Of course, a lack of obvious sense is not necessarily a deficiency. Playfully considered, ’Do geese see god?’ Is a question about what, how and who we see, what the limits to our seeing and imagining might be.

New exhibition, Do Geese See God?
25 March – 11 May 2025
Riverside Studios, 101 Queen Caroline Street, Hammersmith, London W6 9BN

For more information please contact: Felicity Swan: Tel 07736 101503 felicity@felicityswan.com

 

 

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Exhibition listings

RAG artists 2025

January: Natalia Bobrova Nature, Hogarth Club, Airedale Avenue, London / Shona Elrick Under Ice with the Week 45 Collective, 54 the Gallery, Mayfair, London / February: Natalia Bobrova, Parallax Art Fair, Chelsea Old Town Hall, London / Sarah Granville, NEAC, Chris Beetles Gallery, London / March: Stephen Williams Th(is), The Quartz, Feldspar & Mica Gallery in Association with BoxRoom arts, Sennen, Penzance, Cornwall / April: Susan Bazin New Constructivists 2025, Chelsea Library Gallery, London / May: Mike Abrahams Vitrine, Exeter, Devon / June: Natalia Bobrova Artists at Home, Open Studio / Sarah Granville New English Art Club Annual Exhibition, Mall Galleries, London / Felicity Swan Ten Perspectives, One Space, White Noise Projects, The Crypt, London / Felicity Swan KAOS (Kingston Artists Open Studios), Teddington / July: Mike Abrahams Art in Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park, London / August: Natalia Bobrova Creative Mile – Brentford Art Trail / September: Felicity Swan Be(a)sties Friends Forever, KAOS at the Penny School Gallery, Kingston College, Kingston

 

 

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Discourse by Janey Hagger, January 2025

Notes on Landscape Painting

Image: Detail, Caspar David Freidrich, 'Chalk Cliffs on Rügen', c.1818 (Wikipedia)

For those artists who work with landscape, it comes with a legacy from which we continue to harvest ideas and technique. It is intimidating, inspiring and rich. And it has been a particularly male-dominated world, from the romantic landscapes of Constable and Gainsborough to the pleasure gardens of the Impressionists. From the intense gaze of Cezanne, to the art of the sublime of Turner and Casper David Friedrich. From English pastorals of Samuel Palmer and John Nash (alongside the WW1 devastation paintings) to the urban landscapes of Leon Kossoff and David Bomberg.

There was a time around the millennium when one had to justify working in paint from the landscape. Today, this attitude has shifted, maybe in response to the climate crises which has brought the natural environment into sharp focus. The work of artists such as Ilse d’Hollander, Lubaina Hamid, Michael Armitage, Mohammed Sami, Anselm Keifer and Peter Doig bring a cinematic freshness to landscape painting. They push the boundaries of the past, embracing what is sometimes a troubled cultural history.

What seems to emerge from the work of these painters is the concept of a human presence, or absence, that brings a hint of an interaction, impact or story. The liminal space between the natural world and the urban or peopled landscape, feels akin to the narrative and framing you may find within film-making. It is not so much around what the eye is literally seeing (although this plays a part), but the interplay between the psychological and the physical. At the same time, it feels as if we are touching base with the first principals of drawing and observation, allowing the final pieces to evolve into an exploration of poetic and painterly skill.

Janey Hagger, Shona Elrick and Felicity Swan showed Painting the Walk at Laudadale House, 4-23 December 2024
Lauderdale House

Image: 'Painting the Walk' at Lauderdale House, Highgate, December 2024
Photo: Shona Elrick

 

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Discourse by Saadeh-Byreet George, December 2024

Letter from Lebanon 

Image: The Green Line that separated west and east Beirut, 1982 (Wikipedia)

Once upon a time, two little girls made their dolls’ tiny dresses from the seamistress’ sewing remnants. They roamed the forests noting birds’ claw marks on the fresh new snows in winter, and the the first poppies of March, going back home only when famished and exhausted. That was mount Lebanon, always haunted by the Rahbani music and our sacred diva Fairuz.

With time, they became more adventurous, going to beach parties, learning new Beatles songs, occasionally watching Maurice Bejart and his ballet troup rehearse on Baalbek’s Jupiter temple steps, attending Joan Baez concerts, reading Sartre, de Beauvoir, Darwish and Adonis, and protesting against the Vietnam war.

Suddenly, monsters rocked their existence along its fault lines, disasters were followed by catastrophes and quakes… Childhood friends were separated…not even my mum’s favourite song “Che Sara Sara…” could help me accept the new realities,,,we had lost our secure paradise.

Recently, Lebanon has been bestowed with the cursed gift of oil and gas. All the Cruellas entered the stage to further shred and balkanise our little nest. And yet, pine forests and the turquoise sea shall always be there and the people of Lebanon shall keep their solar powered “joie de vivre”, hoping for better times?

 

 

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Services and supplies

Beyond the gallery walls: Artist films and digital strategies

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www.angela-elvira.com

 

 

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Profile

Mark Lemaistre (1960-2024)

Image: Mark Lemaistre running Ubu Books, Brighton Market, c.2024

My Old Friend Mark 

It was with great sadness that I learnt of the death of Mark Lemaistre, just before Christmas. Although I hadn’t seen him for 20 years we shared a history on our personal and artistic journeys. In the 1980’s we spent a lot of time together and were there at the inception of the Riverside Artists Group. I am writing here a very personal recollection of the man I knew.

For me Mark was a force of nature. He ploughed his own course through life. He seemed to live on the fringes of society, a bit of a chancer, a lovable rogue! He once told me that when he left school his art teacher advised him not to bother with art college because he’d just waste his time. He advised him if he was to be an artist he’d have to live a bit first and find his own direction. 

I first met Mark in Italy in October 1981. I was visiting an artist friend who’d set up a studio in an old farmhouse just outside Siena. Philip ran an open house in the summer. Mark arrived with other guests and just stayed on. He set up an easel in one of the rooms and just wanted to learn what he could from Philip. He paid his way by helping out and foraging for food in the local woods. I recall him looking through books and developing an expertise on local fungi. One day we went on a wild boar hunt with the local farmers. We were ‘beaters’ supposed to keep the line for the hunters, we didn’t see any live beasts that day but came back with a big bag of mushrooms for supper.

The following year when Mark had to return to the UK he eventually moved in with me and a group of friends in Lewisham. Mark was great company and soon endeared himself with the others in the house. There were many long nights debating art, social issues and our joint passion for modern Jazz music. Mark may not have fitted in to any formal education system but he researched widely on the subjects that interested him. He was an intelligent, self-educated man who thrived off the interaction with others. We painted alongside each other. He painted my portrait and we held our first London show together in Greenwich in 1983.

When I moved to West London it was only natural for us to explore the art scene around Hammersmith and Fulham together. I remember the heady days in the mid 1980’s, meeting other artists at the Riverside Studios and establishing RAG. It felt like we were at the start of something bigger, especially going on the exchange programme with the Moscow Union of Artists. Those were the days of Perestroika and the wall coming down in Berlin. 

Mark married Louisa in 1989. In the early 90’s they moved to Italy, a small town called San Constantino, south of Napoli. In 1995 I took another trip down south to see him. Together we planned one more artistic adventure. We drove north through Europe with the aim of exploring the German art scene and promoting our work to galleries along the way. In Berlin we secured solo shows in an artist-run Gallery in the east of the city. In 1997 we held our last joint show with the sculptor Lothar Oerthel, Our Country in Der Galerie Der Topfrei Grote, Berlin. 

Mark moved back to the UK in the early years of the new millennium. He had had two children with Louisa, Irene and Enrico. The family settled in Brighton where I visited them with my family. It wasn’t long before he secured a place on the Fine Art Master’s Course at Brighton Art College. The last time I saw him was at his graduation show. His marriage to Louisa had ended, but he was looking to his future with a new direction in his work, making sculptural installations.

When I moved to Ireland in 2011 we lost contact. I understand from mutual friends that he married again but it was short-lived. He focused his final years on building a business selling books in Brighton Market. His health deteriorated and about six months ago he collapsed at his stall and was taken to hospital. Following this, I’m told, he struggled to look after his health. He died 28 November 2024. He is survived by his two children. I understand that his ashes will be taken to the house in Italy, the place he loved, in accordance with his wishes.

Mark died young. His story could seem tragic but whenever I ask mutual friends about him, we smile. Sure, he was a hedonist and prone to excess but he was a warm and friendly person. He took great interest in people, and could engage and entertain on a wide range of topics. This point is emphasised by complete strangers online who, on learning of his death, remember the bookseller fondly. He may have lived on the fringes, resisting conformity, but I admire his self-determination; he was both adventurous and courageous, he explored life on his terms. The enduring image for me is of Mark amongst his books, passionate about his learning, bringing humour and good conversation to those of us that knew him. 

Richard Day, January 2025
My thanks to Myra Berg and Pete Richards who helped me learn about the passing of our mutual friend. 

 

“The ground rules are loose, they are to follow whatever it is that’s happening and to concentrate on the picture’s unique potential. The picture as subject.”
Mark Lemaistre, RAG Russian catalogue, 1989. Photo: David Ash

 

 

 

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Exhibition listings

RAG 2024

Artists participated in two group shows, RAG Annual 24 at POSK in November and Summer Solstice online in June. Individually, artists featured in over 50 exhibitions nationally and internationally.

Image: John Potter at Artists' Talk during the RAG Annual 24, November
Photo: Janey Hagger

December 2024: Grazyna Cydzik ‘Here and Now’, Oxmarket Contemporary, Chichester / Shona Elrick ‘Winter Exhibition 2024/ 2025’, AKA Fine Art, Cambridge / Shona Elrick, Janey Hagger, Felicity Swan ‘Painting The Walk’, Lauderdale House, Highgate, London / Chloe FremantleWorks (RWS & RE)’, Bankside Gallery, London / Chloe Fremantle ‘Aka Contemporary Art Winter Show’, Cambridge / Chloe Fremantle ‘Winter Group Show’, Linden Hall Studio, Deal, Kent / Sarah Granville ‘Mini Picture Show’, Bankside Gallery, London / Sarah Granville ‘Winter Group Show’, Linden Hall Studio, Deal, Kent / Felicity Swan ‘Painting the Walk’, Lauderdale House, London 

 

Image: The Deputy Mayor of Hammersmith and Fulham, Councillor Daryl Brown attending the POSK Private View, 16 Nov 2024. Photo: Shona Elrick

November: 2024 RAG’s annual exhibition RAG Annual 24, at POSK, Hammersmith included a Saturday Artists' Talk. To read more about RAG Annual 24 and to view the catalogue of works click here / Natalia Bobrova ‘W4 Art & Design’, St Alban's Church, London / Natalia Bobrova ‘Made in Hammersmith and Fulham’, Broadway Center, London / Shona Elrick ‘Beep Biennial Painting Prize’, Elysium Gallery, Swansea / Sarah Granville ‘Birds Over Sea’, 155a Gallery, London

October: Grazyna Cydzik ‘Unfinished Work’, online magazine issue 53, Gallery, Instagram Haus-a-rest / Grazyna Cydzik ‘Dwellings’, Frontier Gallery, Sheffield / Chloe Fremantle ‘Timeless language’, Bookartbookshop, Hoxton, London / Chloe Fremantle ‘220 years of the RWS’, Bankside Gallery, London / Saadeh-Byreet George ‘Artbox Project’, Agnes Nord, Paris, France / Felicity Swan ‘KAOS’ at the Rose Theatre, Kingston-upon-Thames / Stephen Williams ‘Pot au Feu’, La mairie de Miramont-de-Guyenne, Lot et Garonne, France

September: Máire Gartland, Jane Oldfield, Brian Deighton ‘Friends of the Earth’, Turners House, Twickenham / Saadeh-Byreet George ‘Emotions’, virtual exhibition, CISTA Art / Felicity Swan ‘Spectrum’, White Noise Projects at One Paved Court, Richmond 

August: Lynne Beel ‘The Spirit’, J M Gallery, Portobello Road, London / Natalia Bobrova ‘The Drowned World’ by Week 45 Collective, 54 Gallery / Natalia Bobrova ‘Brentford Creative Mile’, Musical Museum / Grazyna Cydzik ‘Timeframe’, Cromford Mills Education Room, Derbyshire / Brian Deighton ‘Coastal Currents/Door Series’, Burton Gallery, St Leonards on Sea / Brian Deighton ‘Quaker Arts Network’, Greenbelt Festival, Kettering / Chloe Fremantle ‘Summer Exhibition (RWS & RE)’, Bankside Gallery, London / Máire Gartland ‘Brentford Creative Mile Open Studios’, Studio at London Museum of Water and Steam, Brentford / Felicity Swan, Kingston-upon-Hunte ‘KAOS’ with BBK, Oldenburg, Germany 

July: Grazyna Cydzik ‘Summer Exhibition’ The Gallery Green & Stone, London / Saadeh-Byreet George ‘Hide me, Steal me, Be Nice to Me’, Arte.M, Funchal, Madeira, Portugal / Saadeh-Byreet George ‘Blue Planet’, virtual exhibition, Odyssey Global Media / Chloe FremantleRWS at Linden Hall Studio, Deal, Kent

 

Image: Detail, Summer Solstice on Instagram, 1-21 June

June: 21 RAG artists Summer Solstice on Instagram (@riversideartistsgroup). To read more and to view the works click here / Mike Abrahams ‘I want to quit my job but don’t know what to do with my life’, Observer Building, Hastings, Sussex / Natalia Bobrova, Hogarth Club, Airedale Avenue, London / Natalia Bobrova ‘A Celebration of Trees’, Commonworks Gallery, Wimbledon / Natalia Bobrova ‘Artists at Home, Open Studio’ / Grazyna Cydzik ‘ArtBoxExpo Basel’, EuroAirport, Basel, Switzerland / Brian Deighton with G. Calvert, Stephen Williams and Celia Toler ‘Riverside Reflections’, Riverside Studios, London / Máire Gartland ‘Stand by Me’, Irish Cultural Centre, Hammersmith, London / Sarah Granville ‘New English Art Club Annual Exhibition’, Mall Galleries, London / Sarah Granville ‘Chelsea Arts Society 75th Annual Open Exhibition’, Chelsea Old Town Hall, London / Felicity Swan ‘Richmond ArtHouse Open Studios’, Teddington 

April: Brian Deighton ‘Dark Materials Tell Stories’, JM Gallery, Portobello Road, London / Saadeh-Byreet George ‘Artbox.Project Venezia2’, Cipriate Gallery, Venice, Italy

May: Chloe FremantleRWS Spring Show’, Bankside Gallery, London / Sarah Granville ‘RE Original Prints’, Bankside Gallery, London

March: Saadeh-Byreet George ‘Beyond Borders’, Take-Two Interactive, Fitzrovia, London / Saadeh-Byreet George ‘Cosmoscope Exhibition’, Torriano House, London / Sarah Granville ‘Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours 212th Exhibition’, Mall Galleries, London / Sarah Granville ‘London Original Print Fair’, Somerset House, London

February: Natalia Bobrova ‘Parallax Art Fair’, Chelsea Old Town Hall, Kings Road, London

January: Mike Abrahams ‘Exploring grief and loss’, Willesden Gallery, London / Grazyna Cydzik ‘Construction:Disclosure’, Espacio Gallery, London / Sarah Granville ‘Winter Group Show’, Linden Hall Studio, Deal, Kent

 


RAG Solstice Card 2024

G. Calvert & C. Toler, edited by C. Toler.


Annual Exhibition 2024

'RAG Annual 24' presents the work of 33 artists at the Polish Centre (POSK), 238-246 King St, Hammersmith, London W6 0RF.

The show is a stunning collection that reflects the way practitioners work, juxtaposed against the style or discipline of other members. Self-selected and without theme, the images give a broader appreciation of the current concerns of individual artists.

Following last year’s successful ‘Borders’ show, also at POSK, this year there is an Artists talk on Saturday 9 November. Everyone is welcome to join the discussion, to gain richer insights into an artist’s practice.

Free entry: Open daily: Sunday 3 – Thursday 14 November 2024, 10am-5pm
Private View: Thursday 7 November, 6-8pm
Artists’ talk: Saturday 9 November, 2.30-4.30pm

RAG shows are both visually exciting and thought-provoking. Once again designed and hung by RAG member John Potter (ex-RA exhibitions), there are framed works, canvases, assemblage, combined media and sculpture for sale. Join us at POSK to see and discuss the art. Relax in the lovely Maja Café with delicious coffee, cakes and Polish dishes.

Throughout the exhibition there will be postings of 'RAG Annual 24' on Instagram @riversideartistsgroup.
For more information please contact: Felicity Swan: Tel 07736 101503, felicity@felicityswan.com

Exhibiting artists:
Mike Abrahams, Susan Bazin, Peter Blegvad, Lynne Beel, Natalia Bobrova, Joanna Brendon MBE, Grazyna Cydzik, G. Calvert, Jim Cox, Brian Deighton, Josie Deighton, Emma Davis, Shona Elrick, Chloe Fremantle, Máire Gartland, Saadah George, Sarah Granville, Martin Ireland, Janey Hagger, Buffy Kimm, James Lawson, Seil Lien, Marianne Moore, Jane Oldfield, John Potter, Ryszard Rybicki, Felicity Swan, Sanja Stamenic, Celia Toler, Astrite Vula, Greta Wakil, Miles Watson, Stephen Williams.

For sales of work, please contact artists directly via the artists section of the website.

 


Keith Ball RIP

Keith Ball and I showed over twenty times together from 1987 – 2005.

He was a founder member of RAG in 1986 and willingly contributed his many talents in setting up RAG’s Exhibitions. He became a curator of unusual spaces until he set up the Commercial Gallery in Commercial Street, East London and then under the name of Commercial Too before the gallery finally closed. As a writer and thinker he founded Everything magazine along with another RAG member Steve Rushton which at first was supported by RAG and then, having managed to gain funding, became an independent and important art publication. 

He was a lovely and kind man with a wry and informed sense of humour but in some other ways could be difficult to get to know. However I did get to know him and was very glad of it. He was always ready to make fun of the hypocritical art establishment and was part outsider and part insider - a position he loved to be in. 

When I went to his wake I realised the extent of his very diverse friendships which included people from most walks of life, most of whom I had never met or knew. This was reflected in his diverse art practices which were consistently underpinned by a keen intellect and understanding of life, the world and indeed Everything.

His favourite strap line was: “One day this may all make sense – we can only hope not".

Keith was born 16 October 1955 in Cottingham near Hull. He was the youngest of three children, with an older brother, Ralph, and sister Lesley. He grew up in Brough, a village 10 miles west of Hull. Stephen Williams

Image: Remedy (Single Chamber) 1993
A large number of used (Rosehip) teabags were used to build, inside a wet and cold cellar, a much larger than life, super-sized teabag which was plunged in a puddle outlined by a linear metal strip on the floor. Simple measures – a change of function, scale and the multiplication of the one-fold element, created an unexpected context which brought to mind the inconsistencies frequently met whilst looking inside a logically shaped structure of everyday life. The impossibility of measures taken by people to ward off the inevitability of death – the large teabag in the cellar being also reminiscent of a house or a tombstone. Professor Andrzej Syska

Do you Speak English: International Artists Centre, Poznan, Poland, a group show curated by Stephen Williams with works by: Keith Ball, Almuth Tebbenhoff, Peter Kennard, Katharine Meynell, Helen Underwood and Stephen Williams

ballapparent.com


Creative Mile, the Brentford Art Trail

RAG members: Máire Gartland and Natalia Bobrova

Two RAG artists are participating in the Creative Mile, the Brentford Art Trail in collaboration with the Thames Festival. Natalia Bobrova is presenting work related to the Thames and water in the Musical Museum. Máire Gartland will be showing paintings and includes glass clay assemblage found materials and text that represent her journey over 26 years in her studio that she will be leaving at the end of September. You can find her in Studio 8, London Museum of Water and Steam.
Image: Runaway by Máire Gartland, oil on canvas, 50 x 50cm

From: 1-3 September 2023
Various location throughout Brentford, West London
Creative Mile


Grazyna Cydzik

RAG member: Grazyna Cydzik

Grazyna's work Displaced/Found 2 was sold in the Royal Academy London, Summer Exhibition 2023. The artwork is from her series Displaced – objects collected at various locations along the River Thames Foreshore at low tide.

From: 13 June- 20 August 2023
Royal Academy, London
Royal Academy

From 6-10 September 2023 her painting Still Swimming which alludes to issues around migration is part of the SwissArtExpo and will be displayed in digital form on a screen in Main Station, Zurich, Switzerland. And from 9 September - 14 January 2024 By Torchlight 2 from her Series Displaced will be exhibited in the 170th Annual Open Exhibition, Royal West of England Academy, Bristol.


Kingston Artists Open Studios (KAOS) group show

RAG member: Felicity Swan 

Felicity is participating in the Kingston Artists Open Studios (KAOS) group show at the Rose Theatre, Kingston Upon Thames this autumn. The title responds to the mythology of the Lotus Tree, considered to be sacred in many cultures as a symbol of purity and enlightenment. However, in Homer's Odyssey its fruit was the only food eaten by islanders called the Lotus-Eaters (Lotophagi). Eating the fruit induced a pleasant drowsiness and caused people to forget their friends and homes, thus losing their desire to return home in favour of living in idleness.
Image: In search of the Lotus Tree, 2023, Oil on canvas, 100 x 100cm

From: 4 October-4 November 2023
Rose Theatre, 24-26 High Street, Kingston Upon Thames, London KT1 1HL
Kingston Artists Open Studios
Rose Theatre


Sena Shah

RAG member: Sena Shah

Sena has had a busy summer with work selected for the following shows and events:

Riverfront Art Trail - sponsored by the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham and delivered by Riverside Studios. He is one of six prize winners selected to have art on the river front August - October 2023

Two artworks displayed in the Riverside Studios Summer Exhibition August - October 2023

Work accepted into The Other Art Fair, Truman Brewery, Brick Lane, London E1 6QL 12-15 October 2023

Accepted to exhibit in the Affordable Art Fair in Battersea 19-22 October 2023

In June 2023, Sena was accepted into Artcan and was invited to create a bee postcard for the Bees for Development Summer Show and Auction 14 June 2023

From 4 May - 4 June 2023 his work featured in the Metre Square Exhibition at Tom Cox Gallery  

 


Reflections at the Anna Steinhouse Fine Art Gallery

RAG member: Lucille Dweck

Following their success at the International Biennale of Alentejo in Estremoz, Portugal, the International Contemporary Artist Group (ICAG) present their first London exhibition ‘Reflections’ at the Anna Steinhouse Fine Art Gallery, Primrose Hill, in partnership with environmental charity Client Earth. In a range of multiple media work practises including paintings, drawings and three-dimensional works, ‘Reflections’ explores the artists’ connection with nature, themselves and their environments. ICAG formed in 2022 to provide a forum where artists from around the world (Australia, Brazil, England, Georgia, Germany, Italy, Portugal) could support each other and share opportunities to showcase their work. Further exhibitions are planned later this year in Lucca, Italy.
From: 16-24 September 2023
Anna Steinhouse Fine Art Studio, 41 Regent’s Park Road, London NW1 7TU

Coastal Currents Arts Festival, Burton Gallery

RAG member: Brian Deighton

Brian is showing showing a series paintings (10-14) made this year at the Burton Gallery in St Leonards. The exhibition is part of the Coastal Currents Arts Festival, and he will be present at the gallery on the weekends of 2-3 and 9-10 September between 11 and 4pm. The work will continue to be displayed into the new year.
Image: detail from Gothic, 2023, acrylic on canvas, 122 x 76cms
From: 2 September 2023 through 2024
Burton Gallery, 5 Marine Court, St Leonards on Sea, East Sussex TN38 ODX
Burton Gallery

Summer at Bankside Gallery

RAG member: Chloe Freemantle

Chloe is showing four small gouaches in the summer group exhibition of (mostly small ) works by RWS & RE members at Bankside Gallery.
Image: Rudbeckia, Oxford Botanic Gardens, gouache on paper, 10 x 15cm

From: 11 August - 7 September 2023
Bankside Gallery, Hopton Street, near Tate Modern
Bankside Gallery


Richmond Art House Open Studios

RAG member: Felicity Swan 

Organised this year by Arts Richmond, artists in Teddington, Fulwell and Hampton area opened their studios to the public. Felicity Swan exhibited new and recent paintings alongside potter Carmela Kantorowicz.
Image: Bird flies in the singing wood, 2023, Oil on canvas 120 x 110cm

From: 15-16 and 22-23 July 2023
62 Clarence Road, Teddington, London TW11 0BQ
Richmond Art House Open Studios


 Chloe Fremantle

RAG member: Chloe Fremantle

Founded in 1804, the Watercolour Society (RWS) is the oldest and most prestigious watercolour society in the world. Chloe Fremantle showed four paintings in the RWS Spring Exhibition at Bankside Galley on the theme of 'home'.
Image: Art is the only way to run away without leaving home, 2022, mixed media, 18 x 26 cm
From: 24 March - 22 April 2023
Bankside Gallery

Chloe is also showing watercolours in RWS Now at RWS Gallery.
From: 7-21 June
RWS Gallery

Chelsea Physic Garden: Celebrating 350 Years in Paint and Print.
From: 8-22 June
Bankside Gallery

Bedford Park Summer Exhibition, St Michael’s & All Angel’s Church, Bedford Park, Chiswick, W4 1TT
From: 10-15 June

Chelsea Art Society Open, Chelsea Town Hall
From: 14-19 June
Chelsea Art Society

Regeneration at Hansard Mews Gallery curated by Dr Philippa Beale.
From: 22 June- 15 July
Hansard Mews Gallery

 


A Tall Order

RAG member: G. Calvert 

A Tall Order! is an invigorating look at the artwork made and exhibited in Rochdale Art Gallery during the 1980s by a generation of artists, many of whom were women, young, working class and Black. In a letter from 1987, Jill Morgan, Rochdale Art Galley's Exhibition Officer declared, “Our policy is to encourage new audiences for art . . . To change the domination of art by a white middle-class male audience and producer. A tall order!”  Its daring and innovative approach to exhibition and education programming positioned it on the national map.

G. Calvert's work features alongside over 80 other artists including Chila Kumari Burman, Terry Atkinson, Claudette Johnson, Rita Keegan, Patsy Mullan, Ingrid Pollard, Veronica Slater, and Keith Piper.

From: 4 February – 6 May 2023
Touchstones was known as Rochdale Art Gallery

Click to read reviews in Art Monthly, Artforum and Touchstones


If I were a house…

RAG member: Helen Scalway 

"If you were a house, what house would you be?" asked Helen in her exhibition at London Lighthouse Gallery. With this body of works she explored herself through the visual metaphor of the house, thinking about the self in spatial terms, whereby the house or dwelling becomes a rich metaphor for identity.
Image: A mind in the form of a desk, 2021, watercolour, pencil, wax pastel, crayon on paper, 49.5 x 65.5cm 

From: 2 - 28 April 2023
London Lighthouse Gallery & Studio, 18 Lyell Street, London City Island E14 0SZ

Click here to view the catalogue

 


Catch 23

RAG member: Martin Ireland

To celebrate this years University Boat Race, Putney Pies hosted an exhibition based on this historical rowing race starting near Putney Bridge. Featuring Martin's drawings and paintings along with illustrations by Rachel Hunt, linocuts and original posters of the legendary University race by Anne Hickmott.

From: 23 March - 28 April 2023 
Putney Pies, 2 Putney High St, Putney SW15 1SD


Colette Morey de Morand RIP

Sadly, Colette Morey de Morand died on Friday, 9 December 2022 at St Marys Hospital, Paddington.

Colette was one of the original members of RAG when it began in 1986. She exhibited in our first exhibition at Fulham Palace in 1987 and took part in most of our exhibitions since. She was always a willing participant in RAG activities: attending meetings, participating in Artist Talks and making her studio available for group collections of artworks, notably for the Spanish exhibitions. (Image: Colette - central holding glass - at the ‘Stars in your Eyes’ Institute of Physics exhibition, 2012).

A committed abstract painter, who consistently produced vibrant and ambitious work, she was always open to art opportunities, from Open Studios to international residencies. I began to get to know her during the week I spent in Moscow for RAG’s exhibition there in 1988; and then in 1990, working for a month in the Artists Union studios in Cheyuskinskaya, Moscow, with nine other RAG artists and about 60 soviet artists. Various high profile receptions and dinners were laid on for us and, at one of the first, when the dance music started, Colette broke the ice by confidently walking across the floor to ask the director to dance. She was a participant in life, in art, in conversation and in books and culture. As part of the Russian Exchange, RAG hosted 30 soviet artists in London. Colette threw a party for them in her flat in Melbury Road, Kensington (the ex-studio of Holman Hunt) to which she had generously invited a number of well known British artists who she was friends with, including John Hoyland and Patrick Caulfield. She was also a good friend of Paula Rego - they had adjacent studios in Berry Street, Clerkenwell for a number of years. She was, with Paula and G. Calvert, at Victor Willing’s exhibition in 2019 at Hastings Contemporary.

   Colette with Graham High, 2015

In 1968 she met Clement Greenberg in New Zealand and later worked in her friend, Anthony Caro’s Triangle Workshop in New York State, where she would steal Larry Poon’s ‘wasted’ paint to make her own work.

She completed residencies in Galicia, Bulgaria, Turkey, India, Berlin, the USA, Ireland, the UK and more.

Colette, with her roots in Paris, Canada, New Zealand, White Russia and the UK operated in an international modernist tradition and maintained a committed practice over decades. In the critical re-evaluation that seems to be taking place at the moment regarding overlooked women and minority artists, Colette deserves a much higher profile and recognition for her contribution to British Abstract Painting over the last 40 years.

But on a more personal note... it was always a delight and a huge pleasure to meet and spend time with Colette, to talk, to look at paintings. We will miss her.

CMdM: “Geometric abstraction has a working space that is not illusionist, but a space created for its own purposes. Made by a kind of intuitive synthesis, my paintings float in infinite space, shifting layers that are neither figure nor ground, or are both figure and ground, ...perceptions are altered and ambushed... And the focus can wander between infinite space and the minute.”

“Certainly, everything I experience is in the work... Painting is a translation into visual language of invisible states of mind engendered by our emotional and intellectual responses to our existence... Translation into painting is beautifully complex, since it is the materiality that carries the ideas forward.” From An Interview with Artist C. Morey de Morand by Julie Karabenick, Geoform, 2005 (booklet and website) www.geoform.net.

“As with all Morey de Morand’s work, the point is not what is known but what is felt, what is left to be imagined.“ Charles Darwent, art critic of the Independent on Sunday, from the introduction to her show at Poussin Gallery, 2010

"Encountering Colette initially during the planning and delivery of the RAG Russian exchanges, was one of the most crucial influences in my life as a woman artist. Her indomitable and relentless focus on painting, the curiosity, honesty and joy with which she met everything else in life, was the example I needed and will always treasure." G. Calvert

To see her paintings view her page on this site, and on www.cmoreydemorand.co.uk and www.thelondongroup.co.uk

Brian Deighton, December 2022


Winter Calendar on Instagram

Twenty eight RAG artists present ‘Drawings’ during the festive month of December. The works, revealed through numbers randomly allocated by Clare Belfield, show a range of drawings that are thought provoking and aesthetically satisfying. 

Each artist was asked to give a sentence in response to the question: “What does drawing mean to you?” See their answers on Instagram @riversideartistsgroup this December. 

All work sold will donate 50% to West London Welcome
West London Welcome is a local charity that runs a community centre for and with refugees, migrants, people seeking asylum, and other locals. It works together with local people to provide a safe, positive experience of community, to reduce isolation, build inclusion and confidence, and challenge injustice. 

From: Thursday 1 - Friday 31 December
Daily postings: @riversideartistsgroup
throughout December

RAG members: Mike Abrahams, Susan Bazin, Clare Belfield, Peter Blegvad, Natalia Bobrova, Joanna Brendon, G Calvert, Stephen Carter, Peter Charalambides, Emma Davis, Josie Deighton, Lucille Dweck, Shona Elrick, Chloe Fremantle, Maire Gartland, Aude Grasset, Sarah Granville, Janey Hagger, Anton Harding, Martin Ireland, Seil Lien, Marianne Moore, Jane Oldfield, Felicity Swan, Celia Toler, Greta Wakil, Miles Watson and Stephen Williams

Click here to read the press release.

 


Many Rivers to Cross

As part of the Totally Thames Festival 2022, we are delighted to announce a new exhibition - Many Rivers to Cross. Member artists will be showing new work themed on the River Thames, or as a metaphorical interpretation of the nature and influence of rivers. The exhibition will take place in the gallery spaces at Riverside Studios, opening Friday 2 September and running daily until Sunday 2 October. Each artist is collaborating with another maker, poet, object or app to create work ranging from visual media to performance, poetry and sound.

Exhibiting artists: Mike Abrahams, Susan Bazin, Lynne Beel, Clare Belfield, Peter Blegvad, Natalia Bobrova, G Calvert, Stephen Carter, Grazyna Cydzik, Brian Deighton, Josie Deighton, Lucille Dweck, Shona Elrick, Chloe Fremantle, Máire Gartland, Saadeh George, Sarah Granville, Aude Grasset, Janey Hagger, Anton Harding, Martin Ireland, Seil Lien, C Morey de Morand, Jane Oldfield, Dee Semple, Sena Shah, Felicity Swan, Celia Toler, Miles Watson, Stephen Williams

Collaborating partners include: Heather Allan, Clive Barger, Frans van den Boogaard, Saul Boyer, Cathy Dineen, Joe Cang, Francesca Giuliano, John Greaves, Pauline Harding, Simon Hiscock, Jackson Holmes, Langston Hughes, Geoff Lee, Shepherd Manyika, Madeleine Marsh, Belinda McKenna-Bicknell, Vanessa Nova Nassar, Araba Ocran, Rita Parniczky, Giacomo Pini, Pam Toler

From: Friday 2 September - Sunday 2 October daily
Riverside Studios, Hammersmith, London W6 9BN
Riverside Studios

Daily postings: @riversideartistsgroup throughout September
Free workshop programme: supported by Arts Council England, will run throughout September, for further details, click here


Light Seeking Light

RAG members: Chloe Fremantle and Peter Blegvad

Light Seeking Light is an exhibition of works by the artist couple in the beautiful new RWS Galleries, just next to the National Gallery. The show is curated by Jenny Blyth Fine Art, and will show a selection of Chloe's luminous abstract acrylics and gouaches from recent years and Peter's 'flightless kites' – 3D mixed media constructions begun during the pandemic, plus prints and drawings.
Image: Wing Kite by Peter Blegvad, Acrylic, collage and mixed media on wood, 24 X 24 cm

From: 1 - 12 November 2022
RWS Galleries, 3-5 Whitcomb St, London WC2H 7HA
Email: Jenny Blyth
Jenny Blyth Fine Art