Exhibition Information
Artist Profiles
Artist profiles
Below are profiles of some of our members both past and present.
If any of our members would like to be featured here please contact Julia on : brixhamartsoc@gmail.com
Edward with painting
6 Spiders
Stoke Gabriel
Self Portrait
Boat at Dusk
Old Brixham Fishing Boat
Dr Edward Lovesey. President of our Society.
He never wanted to be an artist, although as long as he can remember he was always painting and drawing. During the war and afterwards there was rationing and each week he eagerly awaited the quarter pound tea which came wrapped in coarse fawn-coloured paper. This was unwrapped carefully and ironed flat. It was all he had to draw on but he used both sides. He wanted to go to Farnborough to work on aircraft. And this he did.
It was not quite what he expected. He had to learn how to file steel plate to a 5 inch square and to within a few thousands of an inch all over. It took ages and many blisters. He progressed and eventually learned to fly and also drive a hovercraft which led him to Timbuctoo, and how not to trust experts. Also his studies took him to the Arctic and he ran trials in simulators to see how test pilots behaved under stress. Brian Trubshaw, Concorde's chief test pilot was one of the poor unfortunates that he exposed to some very unpleasant conditions.
It was not all one way as several military gentlemen have had attempts to cut his life short in interesting ways. But he survived and he had a much better understanding of what makes artists, and especially pilots tick, and how much safer it is to draw and paint.
After taking retirement from Farnborough he spent some time as Visiting Scholar in Ergonomics at the Liberty Mutual Research Center near Boston. USA. He returned to the University of Surrey where he was Course Organiser for Health Ergonomics. At Surrey he had two exhibitons on Decoy Duck carving, and his Spider paintings. Finally he moved to Stoke Gabriel with his family to continue painting and carving. His largest carvings can be seen by the Stoke Gabriel church yew tree.
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Edward was until recently the Chairman of our Society, and is now our President.
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Peter Garratt
An artist we are proud to have as a member is Peter Garratt. Peter has been painting and selling his work in Devon for many years. His inspiration comes from the coastline around Torbay, and landscapes from beautiful villages such as Stoke Gabriel. His preferred medium is watercolour . He uses a wet-on-wet technique which he loves for its unpredictability, saying that using this method you never know what is going to happen so you just go with it. He is self-taught but also influenced by local artists such as John Skinner and Craig Long.
Heather Stafford
Heather has recently found that portrait painting intrigues her most. Her portraits are often of her family, but also of anyone whose face interests her. Her preferred medium is oil paint which she loves due to its colour , depth and blending ability. She also works in watercoclour , pastel and acrylics , depending on the subject matter, and the effect she is seeking.
Ernie Lee
A painter whose enthusiasm is clear to see, especially when he talks about the French Impressionists, and their depiction of light. Amongst his favourites are Monet and Pissarro. He has always worked mainly in oil paint, but more recently has been working in gouache, which he finds gives a very particular quality to the depiction of light on water and reflections from the boats in Brixham harbour.
John Turk
Another of our members is well-known local artist John Turk who paints mainly marine subjects in acrylics. His dramatic sea-scapes usually feature a particular ship or boat whose history he knows in detail. His influences are the many marine artists who painted in this region, including Arthur Briscoe (1873-1943), and Percy 'Powder' Thurburn, and present day marine artist, Toni Knight. He was at one time an art tutor at the local college, where he was intrumental in imparting his knowledge to some of our members