We are proud to announce that our first Open Submission Exhibition “Home” is open 21st July - 12pm, in the Old Print Works, Upper Gallery! This exhibition features 15 contemporary artists exhibiting their art work exploring their interpretation of the theme “Home”. It is free entry – so come along and look at the amazing work which has been created by some exceptional artists! It runs up until Friday August 3rd - opening Tuesday - Saturday 12-5pm.

Meet some of the Artists:

Si Peplow: Graphic Artist, Illustrator and City Dreamer

Si was born in Cornwall but raised in Birmingham. He has graduated from Bournville School of Arts in 2001 and BIAD in 2004. After this he went on to a successful career a Commercial Illustrator where he collected various accolades and featured in a plethora of publications.

10 years later, he decided to focus more on the creative practice as a Graphic Artist. In his time being a Graphic Artist, Si has shown work in the V&A Museum, had shows at Giant Robot New York, Weiden & Kennedy Portland, Projekts Gallery Manchester Barber Co., Mankind Barbers & Medicine Gallery, Birmingham. He has also been invited to exhibit the Tour de France in Paris by Le Coq Sportif and exhibited at two exhibitions in Germany. Si has also painted one of the fibreglass bears (Sonny the Sun Bear) at the Custard Factory for the charity – ‘Wild in Art’ in collaboration with Birmingham Children Hospital. Since 2004, Si has co-curated the artists co-op Outcrowd Collective, staging various exhibitions around the UK and been in collaboration with ‘Capsule’.

Si would say his biggest accomplishment is exhibiting at the MMK Frankfurt and having a piece of work from an exhibition specifically orchestrated and curated for kids acquired and held in the Private Collection of the MIK Ludwigsburg, Germany.

Si believes that the theme “Home” for this exhibition brings forward many connotations. He believes that the physical body of ‘Home’ for himself is his mother’s magical birth canal. Therefore, he decided to discover avenues to explore this notion by taking a series of quick sketches in duration of 30 minutes. These sketches played on the concept of body being home to not just himself but the consciousness. Two artworks by Si was accepted for the exhibition. The first one shows the human (himself) housing / carrying round another human (his past self).  The second shows the foundation of human civilisation / evolution by hands and feet. It’s fundamentally a piece of mobile human architecture, that comes and goes as it pleases.

His motivation behind the work was just to play out an idea and explore what is possible within the theme and hopefully producing something unique yet universally identifiable. Si’s process for this work was starting with his usual method of using his pencil first. However, due to time and other commitments he opted to sketch digitally for the original concepts. After feedback and selection, he took the two selected sketches back to the analogue, this was to create one image in pencil for the exhibition flyer and poster, and then referencing the sketches, he scaled them up to AO format – using pencil, oil stick, acrylic and charcoal on 240 gsm fine art paper as the medium/s to complete the final art works.

Jessica Kirkpatrick: Visual Artist

Jessica is originally from California but currently living in Edinburgh. She currently has private collections of art work around the USA, Europe and Austria, but also enjoys sharing her love for art through teaching. Jessica has a two-year-old son and is therefore inspired by the connection between art making and motherhood. Due to this she has most recently participated in: Artist-In-Residency in Motherhood and Spilt Milk – a collective of artist-mums. In 2012, Jessica won an Abbey Award Fellowship in Painting at the British School at Rome where she spent 3 months in Italy researching the history of the female nude. She then went on to winning a year long housing a studio grant front the Roswell Artist in Residence Program, where she produced a large body of work concluding in a solo exhibit at the Roswell Museum and Art Centre.

The work which Jessica Kirkpatrick has produced for the exhibition ‘HOME’ is out of her most recent series of work in which she depicts American suburban homes immersed in Scottish landscape, mythical drama or as a memory. As Jessica paints she attempts to integrate her identity, her houses she portrays in her Edinburgh studio reveal her nostalgic longing for her childhood in California.

Jessica states that when it comes to painting, no matter the theme, her artistic purpose is to experience the deep flow of creation and to impart that state of presence in the world. She desires to make art that creates more community and connection. She starts with a digital collage process and creates watercolour studies from the collage. From his she then makes several paintings slowly over a few months, where they may be sanded down and reworked or in other cases the piece matures fluidly.

Tamara Tolley: Artist, busy wife and mum of three

Tamara Tolley works as a full-time artist in their family flat in the Barbican Estate in London. Tamara is inspired by the forms and shapes of her brutalist landscape but also by what she refers to as “the colour of concrete”. She claims that the Barbican and the City is her home - It is what she eats, breathes and paints. She is interested in how an individual can find comfort and make a home in the City. She states that we each carve out a small space to live but the wider City can become part of our lives as well.  (To read more about the Barbican from Tamara’s artistic view, go to www.greyscape.com) Along with this, Tamara has also been exploring the relationship between the natural and urban environment and has noticed the way nature can take over in her Estate.

Tamara’s says that one of her big accomplishments was her first exhibition. A year ago, she first entered her work in the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition where it was accepted and was sold within the first five minutes of the show to a Swedish collector. This suddenly made her a Professional Artist. However, Tamara believes her main accomplishment is being able to start and continue an art career at home whilst also being a mother to three children.

Tamara is interested in what “Home” is meant in a large city. She came to London when she was 16 and since then London has become her home. Tamara also believes that anonymity in a city can be liberating and that you can reinvent yourself in a City and find what it is that makes you feel at home. The urban environment is like an extended family to Tamara. She feels that she has a connection with what everyone does. The motivation behind the work Tamara is exhibiting is “The City is my Home” and she chooses to show this in many ways – exploring it, critiquing it, satirising it, but always attached to the idea of how the individual carves the space and a feeling of attachment to her landscape.

As a busy wife and mother, Tamara is used to recycling and making use of what lies in the home. The work for this exhibition have been painted on recycled, reversed palette papers. They are double framed, so the back – and her process – can be observed if you turn the paintings around. Holding them up against the light, they can show varying images. By recycling and reversing fragile and heavily encrusted papers and recycling the paint, her work captures the light and colours from previous work – memories of past work becomes a part of new work which then again, become part of new work, in a continuous cycle. Tamara also uses charcoal in her work. Tamara believes these processes add to what she sees as a rustic, raw and homely feel to her work.

Sylvia Chan – Freelance photographer, videographer and arts co-ordinator

Sylvia Chan was born and bred in Hong Kong, where she loved the vibrant and business of the city. However, she chose to come to the UK (currently living in Birmingham) where she can fulfil her education and career in Arts & Design, as she could see how creative mindsets can be destroyed in a heavily commercialised culture.

Community Arts are one of her new identified passion, as it justifies the function of what arts should be. Her first involvement in Community Arts Project was in an Oral History Project which took place in 2014 – “Chinese Lives in Birmingham” – using recording, videography and photography, capturing the migration story of the Chinese community in Birmingham. At the beginning of this year, Sylvia took on the tole of Co-ordinator for “Arts In The Yard”- the local Arts Forum for Yardley District, where she was able to experience further on how we can use arts to empower our community. Sylvia Chan would say her biggest accomplishment is raising her two beautiful children. She loves her work, but it would always come second to her personal life.

Sylvia is using street photography in her work for the exhibition, her style and approach is heavily influenced by Henri Cartier-Bresson’s work. Using 35mm film and natural daylight to capture the pivotal moment. She simply just wants to capture the way people are. Her motivation behind the work is to capture the people and the people that she loves. She believes photography is a great tool to capture moments and turn them into a unique ‘visual eternity’. Sylvia is fascinated by people and their experience, especially people from the older generation and says their hardship and endurance is amazing.

Sylvia says that she started her work for the exhibition with an open mindset, as you never know what to expect on the street. She chose to be bold, load the camera properly and just simply go for it. She also states that it can get quite technical in the film development and dark room processing – therefore shares a special thanks to Dan and Martin from Some Cities for the help and technical advice!