Artist Focus - Week 1

Rebecca trained at Edinburgh College of Art 1999-2001 (BA Ceramics) and currently lives and works in Yorkshire.
From highly sculptural ceramics, to industrial sculpture and experimental painting, the work of artist Rebecca Appleby is a continual exploration of the contemporary urban landscape. Examining the ever-present cohabitation and conflict between industry and nature. Through a series of techniques developed over a 20-year career, Rebecca’s works are strongly defined by a series of marks and surface contusions that mimic both the manufactured process of industry and the seemingly sporadic, yet calculated occurrences found in nature.

Rebecca is currently working on her upcoming exhibition with the Gallery this spring. 

Elfyn Lewis studied at the University of Central Lancashire, Preston, before gaining an MA in Fine Art from the University of Wales Institute.
In 2009 Elfyn was awarded the gold medal for fine art at the National Eisteddfod of Wales and later went on to be named Welsh artist of the year in 2010.
His work is always technically daring, as he experiments with techniques to achieve the effects he needs to communicate his ideas. This constant enquiry and pushing at the limits, gives the work a rare excitement and energy.

Elfyn is currently working on his upcoming solo exhibition with the Gallery in June 2021. 

Dutch based painter Anke Roder studied at the Academy of Arts in Maastricht and the Royal Academy of Art and Design in ’s- Hertogenbosch. Roder lives and works on the coastal plains in northern Holland, where the landscape, pared back to an austere simplicity, has inspired her with two rich seams to mine – seascapes and plants. Her encaustic seascapes, sensuous satin slabs anchored along a welded horizon, ooze light. The ancient beeswax and pigment technique, applied in molten layers, conveys a contained elemental energy, loading the northern colours within a saturated interior.

Elaine Speirs trained at Edinburgh College of Art and the Slade School of Fine Art in London. A regular exhibitor at the Royal Scottish Academy, with Visual Arts Scotland, and at the Society of Scottish Artists.
Speirs explores the stark contrast she observes between the rich contours of female personhood and the depersonalised portraits of women that appear in the public sphere. Referencing a variety of imagery – ranging from eighteenth century portraiture to contemporary photography and film – the work reclaims the fleeting moments of humanity Speirs glimpses in these images, establishing a tentative connection between the distant and the intimate, between the universal and the personal.