Star Brewery Creatives
The Exhibitors
Rachel Ward-Sale
Rachel studied Art, Design and Bookbinding at The University of Brighton.
Since leaving college she has worked as a self-employed bookbinder, co-founding Bookbinders of Lewes in 1992. She undertakes a wide variety of projects and commissions including designed fine bindings for commissions and exhibitions.
She teaches bookbinding at her studio and other venues, including West Dean College, Chichester.
In 2005 she was elected a Fellow of Designer Bookbinders, serving as President
From 2019-2021.
Rachel has been awarded prizes in national and international competitions, including second prize in the Designer Bookbinders International Competition in 2017. Her work has been exhibited at venues in the UK and abroad, including Collect in London and Windsor Castle. Rachel's work is represented in collections around the world including the Getty, Bodleian and British Libraries as well as the Royal Collection.
While primarily working in leather Rachel also explores other materials including acrylic, paper and velum in her bindings creating contemporary alternatives to the traditionally bound book. Texture, both natural and manufactured, has been a recurring influence on her work. Recently she has been concentrating on this element of design using a variety of found objects, natural and man-made as well as collagraph and printing blocks to impress into leather and paper creating unpredictable and tactile results.
Martin Gayford
Martin’s recent drawings present images that deal with perceptions of scale. The works are ambiguous and suggestive, simultaneously referencing huge architectural structures and small objects. Since creating his imagined cityscapes - displaying an influence of the deserted streets during the pandemic - in 2020, Martin’s work has become more abstract and monumental in appearance. Obsessively worked in graphite, and devoid of any obvious human presence, the drawings nevertheless seem inhabited with a sense of humanity.
Martin was born in London in 1971 and studied at Middlesex Polytechnic and Winchester School of Art. His work has featured in major London galleries, including Royal Academy of Arts, Tate Modern and Whitechapel Gallery, as well as in numerous exhibitions in London and Lewes. In April 2022, Coleman Projects in Bermondsey presented Martin’s solo show ’Oneironautics’, addressing the theme of recurring dreams. This was followed in 2024 by his most recent solo exhibition ‘Moonlighting’ at Star Brewery Gallery, Lewes. Martin has also curated two large-scale exhibitions; ‘Six Days In December’ at Thames-Side Studios Gallery in 2019 and ’Fulgurance’ at ASC Gallery in 2022.
Lynn Gayford
Title: Walk 9, Medium: Acrylic on canvas, Size: 30cm x 40cm
Lynn grew up in Cambridge and studied Fine Art at Winchester School of Art and the Facultad de Belles Artes in Barcelona. She has an MA in Museum and Art Gallery Education and an MSc in Science Communication. Her career has included working at the Lisson Gallery, Chisenhale Gallery and on site specific installations in London and Madrid. Lynn currently works at the National Gallery carrying out audience research and teaches at The Royal Academy of Arts. Her work has been shown in Winchester, London, Breda, Netherlands and Lewes.
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In her recent paintings, Lynn creates shifting spaces that seem both evocative and intangible. From one perspective, an interior appears, while from an alternate viewpoint, the image changes. Moving around the painting, the viewer’s experience can become quite personal. Her rich colours are overlaid with shimmering nets, creating a disconcerting light and movement that demand a closer look. There’s a stillness and focus in the work which echo Lynn’s approach to painting.​
David C Nix
What I do is to make, mostly with paint and paper, or ancient photographic techniques. At times, I share my experiences in the form of workshops, at others, I lock myself in the studio, to make things.
The practical work that I produce takes many different directions and this group of pieces on show is a sample from the series ‘The Long Journey’. The Journey Out
Inspired by extracts from Virginia Woolf’s writing about place, combined with my own explorations of locations both prosaic and grand, they are abstractions and distillations of experience. Some images have their roots in legend, such as the flight and landing of St Govan in Dyfed. Others, maybe a mere glimpse through a train window of an extract of downland.
Kirsten Norbury
Title: Morning light, Medium Oils, Size 330mm x 280mm (including frame)
Light—and the way it transforms colour—has always been my inspiration. Its elusive quality can turn the ordinary into something beautiful, and my aim is to capture those fleeting moments.
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Whether painting a portrait, a still life, or an interior, I am drawn to the beauty in the everyday—the quiet intimacy of familiar spaces and places I’ve visited. My approach is one of simplicity and economy, making every mark count in pursuit of light’s poetry and the sensation it evokes.
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​I teach painting in oils in my weekly classes at Star Brewery. If you’d like to find out more visit: www.kirstennorbury.co.uk
Liz Temperley
I started my Artist Residency in Motherhood in 2022, when my first baby was 9 months old. At the same time, and after spending 13 years as an illustrator using watercolours, I started painting using acrylics and oils. The enquiry into both roles as Mother and as Artist entangled, emulating each others desire to move from the heart. To be grounded, speak with authenticity and to observe a new identity emerging. Using new mediums to explore my narrative on the canvas; an act of visual representation confronting both my external and inner worlds.
In the heady moments I’ve reached for memories; the love and lore bound to the local landscape. In the numb moments I’ve used the palette to tell me how I feel, looking to my garden and the seasons to reflect my experience; pursuing my self-perception. Then through another pregnancy exploring the dreamscape as I journey through the sleeplessness; the liminal space between Mother and the everyday. In an effort to bind myself to something tangible, what I knew, who I was, who I am now.
May Everett
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Title: Twilight, Medium: oil and collage on canvas
May is a painter and printmaker. She currently works in the Star Brewery, Lewes, and teaches printmaking in venues across Sussex.
Her work begins with loose ink drawings on the canvas or printing plate, which are blotted with semi-transparent papers to create an interesting surface residue. This provides a framework of serendipitous marks that are developed with oil paints, printing inks, or collage. She tends to discover the image whilst working although recurring themes often emerge. Sussex landscapes, gardens, foliage, textiles, window frames, archways, and vessels shift and dissolve, resulting in artworks with recognisable elements but also a sense of ambiguity.
Everett studied Fine Art Painting at the University of Brighton and later completed a Masters Level Art & Design teaching qualification. Her work has featured in many exhibitions and open studio events, notably ‘It Rose & IT Fell’ curated by Terrace Gallery in London, Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair, and ‘FairGround’ at Glyndebourne Opera House.
Scott Brenman
Scott works from a small studio above the Star Brewery Gallery.
He paints bold, brightly coloured landscapes.
Scott likes his paintings to be dynamic, with the possibility of a landscape moving and changing with the viewer.
That's why he often paints on to items of furniture, such as old Letterpress drawers, allowing the same landscape to be viewed differently as you walk around it.
In recent years his work has been exhibited at The Brick Lane Gallery, The Other Art Fair in London (presented by Saatchi Art) and the Oxo Tower.
Neeta Pedersen
Danish/British/Indian artist Neeta Pedersen’s vision comes from her unusual heritage, her extensive travels and her rich visual imagination. She has studied film at the New York Film Academy and hold a BA (Hons) in Animation from the University of Westminster in London.
She has developed a very strong style of her own and has created a substantial body of original work expressing herself in many media including paintings, sculptures, digital art, animation and she uses her designs to produce bag, scarves, cushions and mugs.​
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Since 2006, Neeta has been working as an artist, illustrator, graphic designer and website builder. In February 2020 she became the owner and director of the Star Brewery Gallery in Lewes and has curated a wide variety of successful exhibitions by established and up and coming artists.