Galleries - April 2014

art studios. Screenprinting and Textural Monoprinting are on offer this month and plenty more every month. If you just want to look though, their gallery space usually has a good show on – check the website for this and a lot more as per the listing/ad. Our Cotswolds journey’s end is in Bath where Vanessa Gardiner’s ‘Edge Lines’ are at Quercus Gallery. Dorset-based Gardiner’s new exhibition focuses on the Cornish Coast, in particular the series of dramatic peninsulas around Boscastle on the North Coast, where the intersections of cliff points, sky- lines and ocean planes make for particularly rich and rewarding artistic possibilities – viewed from high up the dark slate cliffs, dense blue sea and dusty green uplands produce an edgy, powerful visual impact. Beaux Arts Bath is showing Simon Allen's mesmerising round wall sculptures in April, along with Simon Wright's paintings and Olen Hsu's ceramics. Carved with a range of wavy textures, then covered with gold, silver or white gold leaf, Allen’s elegantly simple sculptures have a rich presence and are popular with private and corporate collectors. to the far northern end – and a bit beyond – of the Cotswolds where, west of Worcester, at Bishop’s Frome, the GreenStage Gallery has its HQ within the Hop Pocket Craft Centre. I say HQ because the gallery is incredibly active taking its roster of lively younger graduate artists to a wide range of art fairs around the country. This month they are very much at home though with a show on throughout of the work of Sarah Mead – colourful architectural fantasies, Matt Clarke – striking imagery drawn from a variety of scientific sources and Beth Richardson – vivid pen and ink figure studies. Well worth the journey in short. Pushing a little further north now, to Much Wenlock the always adventurous Twenty Twenty has also got a show on of emerging artists, seven of them including excellent young landscape painter Ben Travers and local animal artist Jenny Tyler, plus three new jewellers. If all this looking at new, fresh art has put you in the mood to try to make something yourself I can suggest nothing better than heading on down the M5 to Stroud where the dynamic Gloucestershire Print Co-operative has its base and enrol for one of their excellent looking courses in its state of the APRIL 2014GALLERIES 57 continued from page 22 Taddington Manor near Cutsdean, there is a real treasure-chest of a place – Architectural Heritage – which, if gardens and architecture are your passion, is simply not to be missed. Don’t be completely deceived by that name either as the emphasis here is very much on 20th Century and Contemporary sculpture, house and garden ornaments – everything from full-scale figure sculpture to bird-baths, obelisks and fire-surrounds. An absolute delight! If you are travelling around over the first weekend of the month, you are now very well placed – about 30 minutes – to drive over to Woodstock where the CADA Art and Antiques Fair (3-6 April) is holding its third event in the Orangery and Campaign Rooms of Blenheim Palace. Since it started in 2012, this fair has just got bigger and better every year, allowing some 30 of its members to show some of the best art and antiques you are likely to find in the region all in one place. And all this too in one of the great settings in England with the Palace’s magnificent ‘Capability’ Brown Gardens included with the entrance fee – no wonder it is proving such a success! Now, just because, a journey M alcolm Ashman ‘Riverside Construction’ at Bath Contemporary Gallery. Simon Allen ‘Astral’ at Beaux Arts Bath. G race Girvan ‘Turquoise Pebble Pendant’ at Quest Gallery see details map 13