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Feeling the love from Peterborough Telegraph! Thanks for sharing news about the launch. Excitement and nerves are running high as the Just Beyond collection nears the official launch date. The pre-launch has started and collectors have been browsing the shop and virtual exhibition since this morning. The press is releasing the news across the world, literally (EEK!). On Sunday, we are hosting a family-and-close-friends video cheers which will be the perfect way to seal the launch (pic will be posted!).
This has seriously been such a trip. So much painting. So much learning. So much planning. And above all else, so much fun. Pre-covid I was a stay-at-home mother of two looking for ways to get back into career-life. Now I've launched an online shop showcasing my previously-private works of art. I have a wonderful network that has pushed me through to success. So to all of you, thank you. And to myself, THANK YOU. If you would like to join the fun, sign up for The Collector where you will instantly receive your early access code plus 10% off.
Collectors will have the chance to browse the Just Beyond collection in a beautiful and modern virtual exhibition space. By using a computer mouse or keyboard arrows, one can "walk" through the space and view the artwork on the walls.
I'll be reshooting my artwork this weekend (morning light has beens superb lately) and get my art into the virtual gallery in time for the Collectors-only pre-launch on September 4th. I'm considering one wing for the framed originals and one wing for giclée prints.
If you build an exhibition, send me the link as I never turn down a gallery visit. The new collection Just Beyond, featuring original landscape artworks from England, will be available to the public September 6th on ashley-stuart.com. The exhibition features 10 original watercolor or mixed media paintings and limited edition giclée prints that will be available until December 2020. Art was my method of de-stressing during lockdown and I found opportunities to look for inspiration closer to home rather than around the world. “Just Beyond” is the result of my lockdown exploration, featuring UK landscapes nearby my home in Peterborough. I enjoy exploring expansive space viewed from first-person and guiding my viewers towards passageways to somewhere unknown. Each piece aims to be an avenue for nostalgia, while evoking curiosity about what might be just beyond the frame of view. Using layers of visceral brushstrokes to create a fluid base, I applied watercolor pencil or graphite overtop to create depth, definition, and texture. My work focuses on figurative landscapes that are often devoid of people. With this collection, I hope to encourage viewers to embrace the beauty of life right outside your doorstep. Viewings of original artwork may be arranged by appointment-only.
I have been focused on the Just Beyond collection artwork and building my small business. Illustration has been set aside and, oh! how I miss it. When I woke up this morning I decided to squeeze in an hour of sketching. Those sketches turned into macrame plant holders, caught fish on the dock, a reading list, and a zen cup of tea. Using my favorite three colors, I worked as I always do: little to no sketching prior, laying down fields of color, and then giving form and shape with watercolor pencils. After doing some additional iterations, prints of the best will be put into the shop come September.
(Flow of consciousness entry) Exploring the qualities of the complex relationship between mother and child, in addition to the self (adult female and mother). My initial thoughts are to create representational shapes of the roles. How do they interact? How do they interpret each other? Maybe think magnets - cycle of repelling and drawing closer, repel, draw, repeat. What shape is a child? What shape is a female or a mother?
In response to a quick sketch exercise created, a friend mentioned 3-D glasses. This has stuck with me as I think through how this relationship would be best described or transcribed or created or... . The layering of two colors, the creation of another color where overlapped is quite representational of this relationship. Cyan and yellow, green? Magenta and yellow, orange? Is magenta associated with female too often? Would blue be too strong or infer different meaning? Could I use ink? Watercolor? Screen print? My brain is completely overflowing right now! More to come.
"Bourgeois uses the spider, both predator (a sinister threat) and protector (an industrious repairer), to symbolise the mother figure." |
![]() Spider, 1997, Washington DC Visit original post | I first learned of Louise Bourgeois in the National Gallery of Art Sculpture Gardens in Washington, DC. This was in our pre-kids era and we used to go for jazz and sangria on hot summer nights, dipping our toes in the pond. Wandering through the gardens, my intense fear of spiders kept me from one of the most fascinating interpretations of the "mother". It wasn't until I visited the Bilbao Guggenheim that I really felt a connection with these sculptures (still couldn't touch them though) and the artist Louise Bourgeois. Quietly exploring her exhibition space along, my husbands rocking our sleeping one year-old, I realized some of my negative feelings and experiences toward "Hollywood" motherhood were being validated in an unexpected and pleasing way. Even now, thinking back, I'm not sure I can put the experience into words; I just remember the experience being quiet and loud, and eerie and comforting, simultaneously. To say the very least, it was unforgettable. |
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