I am a designer/maker based in Faversham and Medway.
My work involves the use of recycled paper, plastic and textiles combined with digital imagery. I am currently working on a range of accessories made from recycled plastic bags.

Location: Faversham | Medway
Contact: sian.ffrangcon@btinternet.com

Often depicting retreat, my work elaborates on the continuum of rhythm and pattern and is concerned with mathematics, natural cycles and the interconnection of all living things. Through repetition, the work explores the building blocks of growth, whilst at the same time considering the formal relationships between balance, line, space and form. Paper and card are frequently used as a medium to convey the importance of recycling and emphasize the endurance and resilience of nature, whilst expressing fragility of form.

Location: Sevenoaks
Website: www.theresart.me.uk
Contact: info@theresart.me.uk

I never have a clear idea of what a finished painting is going to look like. They evolve organically during their creation. My inspiration comes from the Kent countryside and childhood holidays spent in Cornwall. I’m very interested in narratives that are intrinsically linked to the countryside such as local history and folklore. I like to hint at mysterious happenings within the paintings however, my stories exist only within the paintings and reveal themselves only in the closing stages of their making.

I discovered colour when I was in my first year at college. Since then it has caused me no end of anguish. Recently I have become very interested in the physicality of the paint surface as well which has led to some rather unusual additions to my painting materials.

Location: Rochester
Website: www.richardfriend.co.uk
Contact: info@richardfriend.co.uk

The imagery in my paintings and the form of my sculptures inhabit the rich territory between abstraction and figuration.

I am from the first generation of artists for whom the landscape of our visual horizons started with the world changing Apollo mission photographs of the earth from space. I am influenced by Hubble’s beautiful images of emerging nebula and haunting photographs of sub-atomic particles. I am also inspired by the pastel colours of Odilon Redon; the Petri dish colour studies of Ellen Altfest; the skies of Turner and Nolde; and the wet on wet techniques of Frankenthaler and Xingjian.

My paintings are abstractions from the world around me: dark skies; looming presences under a quarter moon; silhouettes of black against darkness; moonlit kipper clouds against the backdrop of the milky-way. Horizons are hinted at if not always present; they are studies in light and colour. My sculptures evoke dry and twisted bone, fossils and slumping flesh. Both give space for the audience to fill in gaps and use memory and imagination to see the whole.

Location: Little Chart
Website: www.harrietgifford.com
Contact: harriet@hgifford.co.uk

I trained as a fine artist and my approach to my textile work uses the same conventions and language. Interpretation of my ideas in fabric and other found materials means the work is approachable and familiar.
I often work on collaborations developing a range of work based on environmental themes from the natural and observed world to the memories of journeys and places. I continue to exhibit new work as an individual and as examples of these collaborations.

My main employment is as a  free-lance artist working on commissions both for public spaces and for the home environment. In addition to exhibiting work, I give talks and workshops at  various venues including museums, galleries and colleges of further education. Part-time tutoring for Adult Education and at West Dean College are a regular part of my teaching practice.

‘Cas Holmes has a down-to-earth approach to life and her art takes her on flights of fancy,  which evoke folk cultures, traditions and mythology with an abandon which ignores all barriers. Sometimes figurative, sometimes wholly abstract she has an unerring faith in her feeling for her materials. Confidence pours from her work and with it a power and sophistication that brings to it an almost religious sensation of ancient wisdom revisited.

Her work is inevitably influenced by her visits to Japan but more as someone who would use that influence to reaffirm her own strengths. That is her originality.

Her materials are overwhelmingly organic and appear to have been given new life. Paper ages and crinkles with a will of its own and is made exquisitely into a Japanese style panels allowing  light to pass through, or are incorporated into one of her unique quilted hangings. Behind it all there is a sense of grand design under the control of the artist. It is both decorative and rich in symbolism.

A sense of provocation displays her commitment to art as part of life and shows richly in her dedication to community projects into which she throws herself like an avenging demon.’ – Ralph Steadman

Location: Maidstone
Website: www.casholmes.textilearts.net
Contact: casholmes28@yahoo.co.uk