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!
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.
Conceived on Zoom in the first few weeks of the pandemic, The Lots Road Group’s ‘Beyond the door’ exhibition has been a long time coming. But our fantastic designer member Sarah Reynolds has now created this poster and work is progressing apace on our online catalogue.
The exhibition, to be held at the Bermondsey Project Space opposite The White Cube, will feature portraits by 15 artists in the group and contemplates life on both sides of the doors that have defined our lives during the last eighteen months, both as protection from a hostile outside world and the means of escape from confinement.
The Lots Road Group studied portraiture The Heatherley School Of Fine Art ‘Our portrait Your story’ sums up our approach to portraiture where, uniquely for a group, we tell the story of our sitters in words as well as picture. In this way we hope to explain the importance and unique qualities of portraiture in the age of photography.
Portraiture allows you to see yourself through the prism of the artist’s eye… and It protects your image through time. Through our regular shows and commissions, we have asked what portraiture means to you. And you have told us you want us to record moments of transition – births, childhood, leaving home, weddings and posthumous portraits to keep treasured memories alive. In addition, some of you like us to work from agreed photographs where others, less time-starved perhaps, enjoy the experience of sitting. But whatever your preference, one thing’s for sure: collaboration is at the heart of a portrait and we welcome such collaboration with you.
Click here to learn more.
LRG’s Hero Johnson will be showing a small portrait at this year’s Royal Society of Portrait Painters exhibition which runs to the 15th of May at the Mall Galleries. Tickets can be booked in advance on the Mall’s website.
‘Beyond the Door – portraits and other recent work’ the latest exhibition by the Lots Road Group of portrait artists is scheduled for the end of July.
Bermondsey Project Space, 185 Bermondsey Street, London SE1 3UW
Tuesday 27-Saturday 31 July 2021, 11am-6pm
The Lots Road Group’s latest exhibition, ‘Beyond the Door’ will take place in Bermondsey Project Space – a gallery in the heart of Bermondsey’s vibrant artistic area from Tuesday 27 to Saturday 31 July.
‘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 will be introduced by one of our portrait subjects, Robin Hanbury-Tenison, world famous explorer, President of Survival International, re-wilder of the Cornish countryside – and COVID-19 survivor. Hanbury-Tenison’s was the embodiment of an outdoor life until he had to spend 7 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 be contributing at this exhibition.
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
Hero Johnson, who first portrayed Barbara Hosking CBE for the Lots Road Group’s Portrayed! exhibition, has paid tribute to her sitter and mentor.
“She inspired and mentored so many women over her long and illustrious life and I will always be gratetful to have been among them,” she said.
The International Women’s Forum UK commemorated its 25th Anniversary in 2015 with a portrait exhibition of 16 of its most inspiring women – its four founders and its first 12 chairs.
IWF UK is part of the International Women’s Forum, an organisation which advances leadership across careers, cultures and continents by connecting the world’s most pre-eminent women of significant and diverse achievement.
The portraits – contained in this online catalogue – were created by artists in the Lots Road Group. Barbara was married up with Hero, appropriately, by the drawing of lots, and they discovered they both had a connection in Cornwall.
LRG’s Stella Tooth has been interviewed by Alison G Saunders, artist and educator for her March blog.
In a wide-ranging interview, Alison explores the importance of narrative in Stella’s work, her inspiration – and more.
To read the interview, please click here.
LRG’s Sarah Jane Moon is taking part in Heart of the Matter, curated by Mollie E Barnes, Founder of She Curates, at the Gillian Jason Gallery.
The exhibition launches tomorrow (Monday 8 March) on International Women’s Day 2021 and will open in the gallery’s 3D Virtual Viewing Room and run until 15 April.
Heart of the Matter features new and recent works from a stunning line-up of artists incluing Tracey Emin, Bridget Riley and Chantal Joffe,
In support of International Women’s Day theme of 2021, both Gallery and Curator will #ChooseToChallenge gender inequality in the art world while providing a platform for emerging and established artists. http://www.gillianjason.com
If you would like to learn more about Sarah Jane, click here to read an interview she did a while back with the Mall Galleries.
And if you’d like to take a virtual tour of her studio with The Net Gallery click here.
LRG member Stella Tooth has begun a new blog about portraiture and musician art at a time when the UK’s culture industry has been seriously affected by the pandemic, yet is demonstration its ability to heal.
Stella’s blog will be published on the fourth Monday of each month, in case you would like to bookmark it.
Click here to read her first blog on The portrait as legacy and this month’s on The portrait as society glue.
Do hope you enjoy reading them!
We’re delighted to congratulate Natasha Farrant, one of the authors whose portrait featured in Lots Road Group’s exhibition ‘The Art of Reading’, who has won the most prestigious prize for children’s literature, the Costa Children’s Book Award, for her novel ‘The Voyage of the Sparrowhawk’.
Natasha was painted in her garden looking amused by one of her earlier novels, ‘Lydia’, by LRG member Hilary Puxley.
The prize winning novel, set in the aftermath of World War I, is a classic adventure story which follows the epic journey of two friends and their dogs on a narrowboat as they set off through England and across the channel to France to find lost loved ones and a place to call home.
Natasha says she was interested in how lives can be rebuilt after a huge trauma, and her story shows her young heroes bravely shaping their own destinies – a theme that must resonate with today’s young readers.
The Lots Road Group 