December 2022
One of our members Stella Tooth has been interviewed by Nicholas John, the Editor of ‘Blues in Britain’ Magazine about her performer art.
The interview appears in the latest December issue and runs over two pages and includes artworks created at the Half Moon Putney, where she is the iconic music venue’s resident artist.
Hope you enjoy the read!
One of our artists Stella Tooth has recently completed a commission via the Royal Society of Portrait Painters.
If you’d like to find out how it came about, how the commission progressed from start to finish, and what the sitters thought of it click here.
Lots Road Group portrait painter Sarah Jane Moon is also a member of The Contemporary British Portrait Painters and will be exhibiting with them at The Department Store Brixton 11-18 June. Do save the date!
Sarah is currently half way through a sabbatical year in her native New Zealand where she has studios in the Bay of Plenty.
LRG’s Hero Johnson has both a self-portrait and a portrait of Dame Harriet Walker now on show at the Royal Society of Portrait Painters Exhibition at the Mall Galleries, running until 14 May.
The exhibition, which celebrates contemporary portraitures is open from 10am-5pm (late night 7pm 11 May), Booking is not required. £5 entry or free for Friends of Mall Galleries and under 25s. Concessions available.
The exhibition features over 200 portraits by members of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters alongside works carefully selected by them from thousands of portraits submitted from all over the world.
A number of London exhibitions from May to September feature exciting new album cover sized digital performer paintings by the Lots Road Group’s Stella Tooth.
During lockdown Stella began experimenting with digital painting, using the Procreate App on her ipad pro with the game-changing pressure sensitive ipencil.
Using her skills as a traditional oil painter, she paints freehand inspired by a variety of photographs. Some she takes herself as resident artist at legendary music venue, the Half Moon Putney, some from visits to her local west London music venues like the famous Eel Pie Club (to read article about Eel Pie Island museum by the artist click here). Some are inspired by photos of rock stars by Getty photographer Solomon N’Jie, taken at the height of their fame in the 80s.
Now, to help celebrate The Ealing Club‘s Rock’s Diamond Year (where electronic blues all began in 1962 with @MarshallAmps setting up in nearby Hanwell the same year) and the continuing tradition of live music at the Half Moon Putney, Stella is exhibiting her digital paintings in different London venues this Spring and Summer.
Two of her musician artworks feature in the British Blues Exhibition at the Barbican Music Library from 26 May for four months. Others form part of Skylark Galleries art collective’s joint June exhibition at Spaghetti House Gallery in Holborn running until 19 June. And ‘Art & Sol’ – featuring both Sol’s rock photos and Stella’s interpretation of them – is the launch exhibition at the Ealing Project, Ealing Broadways’ new cinema, gig and exhibition space. To find out more click here.
Thursday 9 – Sunday 19 June 2022
Private view – Wednesday 8 June 2022
A solo exhibition of work by award-winning artist Maureen Nathan is opening this June at The Fitzrovia Gallery, London. ‘Beneath The Moon & Under The Sun’ brings together works on paper produced over the last two and a half years.
Exploring and responding to the world around her, Nathan’s series of artworks bear witness to the outbreak of Covid and the months following. Opening with solitary silhouettes in moonlit gardens, tangled branches cloaked in darkness and obscurity, and unfurling into a colourful confetti of blooming flora, ‘Beneath The Moon & Under The Sun’ puts into visual form a timeline that maps not just night and day or the changing seasons, but Nathan’s own illuminations.
Through a variety of mediums – painting, collage and printmaking – Nathan uses the physical environment as a vehicle for discovery and enlightenment, taking what’s in front of her and turning it into a beautiful, dream-like narrative.
Reflecting on her surroundings, she says, “the natural world steadfastly follows its own rhythms, season after season, on land and on sea, and is an endless source of inspiration and solace.”
Born and raised on the West Coast of Canada, Maureen settled in the UK as a young adult. She divides her time between her home and studio in North London and her workspace in rural Dorset. Her work has been shown with the Royal Society of Portrait Painters, The Royal Academy, Wells Art Contemporary and the Royal West of England Academy.
To see more of her work, click here.
Commission a portrait from the Lots Road Group Beyond the Door exhibitors
On the eve of International Friendship Day Art & Soul portraiture and music art blogger, and LRG member, Stella Tooth looks at camraderie and the joy and power of exhibiting as a group of artists.
She says, “As one of the founding members of the Lots Road Group of portrait artists I’m delighted – for the first time since lockdown last March – that we are able, once more, to exhibit together again.
Conceived in the dark days of the first lockdown on Zoom, a technology which was new to us (remember that?) we came together around an idea sparked by a FT article ‘The Pandemic is a portal‘ by Arundhati Roy.“
The author said: “Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal…”
She went on to say we could carry on in the way we had with our avaricious ways or we can walk through it ready to imagine and fight for another world. We decided that that would be our theme.
If you would like to read the full blog please click here.
To see our ‘Beyond the door’ online catalogue click here.
A huge thank you to more than a hundred of you who attended our ‘Beyond the door’ exhibition tonight.
Here are some of our artists with their paintings snd their sitters.
The exhibition runs until Saturday at the Bermondsey Project Space near London Bridge.
A portrait in oils of Robin Hanbury-Tenison, world famous explorer, President of Survival International, re-wilder of the Cornish countryside – and COVID-19 survivor, features in a new London exhibition which opens next week.
The portrait, by Sarah Reynolds of the Lots Road Group will be on show at the Bermondsey Project Space – a gallery in the heart of Bermondsey’s vibrant artistic area – from Tuesday 27-Saturday 31 July from 11am-6pm.
‘Beyond the Door’ will reflect on the unprecedented times we have been living through. It will feature portraits by 15 artists in the group generated during the pandemic when our own front doors have defined the way we live. The doors to our homes have been both bulwarks against a dangerous world and a means of escape from confinement. The word ‘beyond’ in the title of the exhibition is deliberately ambiguous, allowing exploration of both interior and exterior worlds through the medium of portraiture. Artists have chosen subjects whose experiences are representative of the unfamiliar limbo through which we have all been passing. These include people who have had Covid, those we have been locked down with, those we have only seen on Zoom or Facetime, fellow out of work creatives – and ourselves – never has there been a more appropriate time for self portraits!
This year the group has invited a guest artist to join them, Melissa Scott-Miller RP, NEAC, RBA. Scott-Miller is an acclaimed artist specialising in portraits and urban landscapes – which often include elements of portraiture. Her work is therefore the embodiment of the dual interior and exterior theme of this exhibition. She has continued her usual practice of painting landscapes en plein air during the pandemic so far as humanly possible and has also worked at home including creating a portrait for this exhibition. In another innovation this year the group will be showing a selection of other recent work reflecting the diversity of members’ practices and their preoccupations during the past year.
The exhibition catalogue will continue the Lots Road Group’s usual practice of including a narrative with each portrait, giving both artist and sitter a voice – something that makes the group unique. The catalogue is introduced by Robin Hanbury-Tenison.
Hanbury-Tenison’s was the embodiment of an outdoor life until he had to spend seven weeks in hospital with minimal chance of survival. He credits a visit to the hospital garden as the turning point in his recovery and is now raising funds for more such healing gardens, a cause to which the Lots Road Group will encourage contributions at this exhibition. Click here for his fundraising page.
Exhibiting artists:Rebecca Asghar, Alla Broeksmit, Martin Burrough, Matt Collis, Hero Johnson, Christine Klein, Sharon Low, Fiona Mitchell, Maureen Nathan, Hilary Puxley, Colleen Quill, Lucinda Rendall, Sarah Reynolds, Mark Stevenson, Stella Tooth
Media previews:
The Lots Road Group 