Katie has a business in burlesque corsetry, mostly bespoke corsets and costumes for performers and showgirls.
Taking up painting in recent years she draws on a wealth of theatrical styles from her burlesque and fashion background, using traditional techniques in her oil paintings. They are infused with a dark allure, using characters and costumes to create contemporary portraits.
“My love of historical paintings has been a big influence for me, I aim to create portraits with a traditional style whilst using the vibrant and diverse characters that I come across. Working in the burlesque and fetish scenes there is a wealth of inspiration for me”.
Tattooed models, performers and subjects with an unusual style or personality become her muses, making her paintings an enchanting reflection of modern society.
Anna Kopach is an artist from Ukraine who has been living in Battle for the past few years. She finds inner peace in painting, draws inspiration from human stories, and transforms emotions into her artworks.
“This exhibition is a doorway into my inner world. In moments of solitude, I find space for reflection, and creativity becomes my path toward light. I invite you to enter my perspective, to feel it, and perhaps to recognize something of your own within it.”
I’m Juliette Wills, a self-taught photographer, just-breaking-through artist, decent ceramicist and award-winning writer. Rather than pick one thing I’m good at, I decided to do them all.
I’m pulled in by colourful people, a brightness bursting through a miserable day and the strange allure of decomposition. Marine Court, photographed from the back, is my favourite image; its decaying façade is beautiful in my eyes; the contrast with its bright white ship-shaped front is incredibly striking, a real Jekyll & Hyde structure.
People Places Things is Holly’s largest solo exhibition to date and will feature as part of the Coastal Currents arts festival. Expect to see a colourful medley of both impressionistic and lifelike portraits, landscapes and still lifes. Also on display and available to purchase will be a number of ceramic and collaged creations, greetings cards and art prints.
Greg Stevenson is the creative director of Pinpoint Studio, a Hastings-based design agency. This exhibition is a collection of the drawings he does in his spare time. They are drawn from his head with no brief, fast and loose, using brush and ink, and in defiance of his inner critic who says things like “Can’t you just draw a house or a dog or something?”. A raspberry to that man.
Local visual artist Adam Dando shares with us his latest avenue of enquiry, abstract minimalist colour-field paintings. With some of his most resolved work to date, expect paintings that are calming, elegant and timeless.
Paul lives locally in the Battle area and has been drawing cartoons for as long as he can remember. Over the years his cartoons have been published in numerous newspapers and magazines, which include Punch, The Oldie as well as the satirical magazine, Private Eye. Paul has been regularly published in Private Eye since 2011, where his work has also appeared in their ‘best of’ compilation annuals.
I paint/draw on paper with a mix of mediums.
My process involves transforming the original image by tearing/cutting and building up through layers into an altered image with glimpses of earlier marks and textures visible beneath the surface.
I am interested in this transformation and the build up of texture this produces.
It means that nothing I work on is beyond repair and is always salvageable.
This ethos informs my approach to making: every mark is part of the conversation and every image holds the potential for renewal and change.
Subject, form, colour and texture are all suggested by my surroundings.
I work from my studio in Hastings.
Harry Cockburn is an environment journalist, writer and artist living in Hastings.
His painting and writing both seek to explore human relationships with the natural world. Painting and drawing the various places he has lived has been a vital way of forging a closer relationship with the area and also how we interact with the forces of nature. His art aims to explore how the worsening environment emergency is informing our relationship with the landscape itself, with art and wider culture.
He has previously painted and exhibited artwork in St Leonards, the Wye Valley, the Forest of Dean, Brighton, and with Extinction Rebellion and local art groups in Hastings.
Photography has been a passion of mine and I have developed a unique eye and honed my ability to capture fleeting, often overlooked, special moments through my camera lens. I believe my neurodiversity helps me to see the world from a different perspective. I hope you enjoy these images as much as I enjoyed taking them, thank you for taking a look.