To The Hills - Spring Exhibition
Alison MacGregor Grimley - Paintings
Saffron Guy - Ceramics
March 31st - May 28th 2022
To The Hills - Our Spring exhibition of 2022 features an exhibition of paintings by landscape and abstract artist Alison MacGregor Grimley along with Saffron Guy’s exquisite ceramic vessels
In addition to our visiting artists the gallery as ever hosts a wide variety of work from artists based in and around the Welsh Borders as well as Saoirse Lewis’s silver jewellery from our Garden of Delights exhibition
Alison MacGregor Grimley
Alison MacGregor Grimley is an abstract artist. Her work is primarily about northern light and colour. She trained in Fine Art at Kent Institute of Art & Design and won the Daler-Rowney Painting Prize in her graduation year.
Saffron Guy - Ceramics
Saffron Guy studied chemistry and biochemistry at university, she then worked as a research biochemist.
Saffron began her journey in ceramics at Putney School of Art nineteen years ago. The ceramic vessels are hand built using slabbing, pinching and coiling methods. They are decorated mainly with coloured glazes but occasionally with decorative slips or after bisque-firing with underglazes.
Lockdown was the catalyst to ensuring her own studio was fully functional and Saffron now makes hand-built pottery in a small studio in Herefordshire 100m from the Welsh border.
She takes inspiration from both natural organic forms and also from the laboratory, vessels that she might have come across while working as a chemist and biochemist.
Joe Finch - Pottery
Joe Finch started his career with a four year apprenticeship at Winchcombe pottery. His beautiful coloured glazes due to the random effects of the wood fired process and adding soda into the Kiln environment in the last stage of the firing make each piece unique. His work is intended for everyday use.
Alison MacGregor Grimley
Artist Statement
My work has its roots in landscape, and is predominantly concerned with northern light and colour. Autumn, winter and spring are the times of year I like best because of the white light, full of clarity and sharp contrasts against the deep violets of distant hills — especially the hills of the Welsh Marches with their ancient geological history. As a colourist, I like to build up layers of thin washes before adding deeper shades. A white ground of gesso or paper enables the light to show, creating an impression of “looking through”.
The aim is to paint something intangible — perhaps the feeling of finding the source of light as it comes from behind the clouds or through the trees. It is the landscape of the imagination. Texture is also a strong component in my work. I take an experimental approach, using hand-printed marks as collages, to be incorporated in the painting. The forms, through abstract, are always biomorphic in origin.
