Star Brewery Gallery
SPRING SHOW
Susie Monnington
Evocative abstract paintings inspired by Outer Hebridean beach wanderings.
I never know what my paintings will look like. They emerge from an intense and focused practice, balanced with trying to be open to surprises, alert and ultimately inviting in a painterly playfulness: A found bottle top from the beach used to make marks suggesting bubbles in the sand. Seaweed crushed into sand to build texture.
Seaweed washed up on sand, deposited in lines resembling manuscript staves with dried kelp spore sacs, scattered like crotchets and quavers, pushed and pulled backwards and forwards with the tide’s ebb and flow. Shape-shifting sands blown across the shore by relentless winds. A never-ending dance along the shore.
Time marked out on rocks. Sometimes sanded and polished shiny smooth, sometimes geometrically precise with delicate traceries and occasional angry abstract gashes, scratched and gouged out like war wounds. A reminder of the sea’s power.
Paul Newland
'I studied at the Slade School of Fine Art. After a year abroad on a French Government Scholarship I established a studio in London, as well as teaching there and in other parts of England. During a year in Rome in the mid-seventies I took up the use of watercolour, which became my chief means of expression for many years. I became a member of the Royal Watercolour Society in 1990 and of the NEAC twelve or so years later. (At the RWS I served as Vice-President and as Honorary Curator.)
While a lecturer in painting and, later, art history at Roehampton University I travelled frequently across London, along the river east to west: the Thames and its embankments and the hills of South London gradually supplanted the themes of still life and figure which before predominated. Then, in the noughties I moved to East Sussex, to Lewes. Subject matter was extended and oil painting became important to me. There have been several exhibitions over the years, both in London and elsewhere and work is found in many collections here and abroad.'
Rosie Good
Rosie lives and works in Lewes. She is a graduate of the Royal Academy Schools and has won several awards. She draws imagery from the landscape, both urban and rural and is interested in the way things change over time, including erosion and dereliction. In the last couple of years, she has spent time looking at well-known abandoned structures, including Shoreham cement works, the North Street quarter, Horsebridge Mill and Black Rock Gas works. These old industrial landmarks hold stories from the past and are monuments to a different time and ideas of change. She is also a member of Salt Edge Arts, an art group interested in depicting the changing coastline and area surrounding Cuckmere, Sussex.
Mark Munroe-Preston
Mark, originally from Yorkshire, studied photography at Wolverhampton Polytechnic before moving to London, where he worked as a still life photographer. His interest shifted to digital illustration and CGI, leading him to become a children’s illustrator. In 2001, Mark relocated to Sussex, where he rekindled his passion for landscape photography, particularly in Ashdown Forest and the South Downs National Park. By 2017, he began transforming these photographs into artwork for his first exhibition. After going full-time as an artist in 2018, he exhibited widely in the UK and beyond.
His work blends photography, painting, and collage to create atmospheric pieces inspired by nature. Focusing on trees, Mark captures their complexity and importance to ecosystems. His art often incorporates themes of windswept landscapes and interconnected natural systems. Each piece is titled with GPS coordinates to encourage viewers to visit and experience the locations firsthand, with works presented as limited edition prints on brushed aluminium.
Sarah Ruthven
Sarah Ruthven abstracts the landscape with colour. She is drawn to wild places like the west coast of Cornwall, the Sussex coast line and the undulating and expansive South Downs.. These landscapes inspire Sarah’s ceramic and painting practice, which feed into each other. Oil paints, palettes, slips and glazes all retain the flowing and malleable landscape she experiences.
As a ‘plein air’ oil painter Sarah will visit the same spots repeatedly connecting and tuning into the landscape. When back in the studio Sarah will give the paintings time to breathe and make decisions whether to work on the paintings further.
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Sarah's paintings are lyrical, hazy, luminous and are sensitive invitations into land and light. Sarah says,' I feel like there is this human yearning to reconnect and remember'.
Sarah’s artistic career has taken her from a BA Fine Art at Kingston University to a Marsters with Distinction in European Fine Art at Winchester School of Art and Barcelona. More recently Sarah completed Professional Landscape course at Newlyn School of Art.
Marc Gooderham
