Photographer and painter with shared attraction for the abstract

A PHOTOGRAPHER and a painter with a shared love of the abstract are to exhibit together at the Old Fire Station Gallery in Henley.

Stuart Feurtado and Karen Joy first met when they both showed their work at Bucks Open Studios at Kingsey Church, near Haddenham, in 2016.

Stuart, a retired engineer from Princes Risborough, says: “I do straight photography, some landscapes, black and white images, birds, dragonflies and damselflies, anything that takes my fancy. If I like it, I’ll take a picture of it.

“I only choose something I like. I don’t think, ‘Will people like this, then I’ll show it’, it’s the other way round. I show it and if they like it, great.”

He uses camera effects and post-
processing software in his digital
artworks.

Describing a picture called Sunshine Wood, Stuart says: “I’m moving the camera while I’m taking the picture and what that does is stretch all the verticals but loses all the horizontals so you end up with lots of lines, basically.

“I’ve also tricked the camera into thinking that it’s really sunny when actually it isn’t. When it comes to showing, it tends to be the pictures that are abstracted in some shape or form that actually get the attention.”

Karen, from Piddington, near Bicester, trained as a picture restorer, then went to college to learn printmaking.

“I didn’t actually start painting properly until much later after having kids,” she says. “I came out of art college, got married and went back to picture restoration in order to earn some money.

“I started again with evening watercolour classes and when I discovered acrylic that was it. It has become more and more of a passion.” Karen initially painted representational works but then discovered a love of the abstract. She says: “I was doing these big Oxfordshire skies and they sold quite well but I wanted to try more so I’d like to feel more of an artist. I’m not a commercial ‘turner-outer’.

“When I exhibit more representational stuff, people say, ‘Oh, that’s lovely’ but on the whole, people that see my more abstract work go, ‘Oh, wow’ and they connect more from the soul.

“There was one lady who bought a painting at Oxfordshire Artweeks and she absolutely loved it. She was like, ‘I can’t, I can’t’ but she took my card and went away.

“About an hour later, I had an email from her saying, ‘I asked myself, can I afford that? Absolutely no but I’ve got to have it. Have you still got it?’ That is the nicest feeling, that somebody feels that sort of ‘Whoa’ — they get you.”

Karen compares with this Stuart’s abstract work.

“I think we do the same thing in our different mediums,” she says. “We’re both expressionist and abstract, not commercial artists.”

• Impressions and Rhythm of the Land is at the Old Fire Station Gallery in Upper Market Place, Henley, from
Friday to Monday, August 26 to 29, from 11am to 4.30pm daily. People are welcome to have a look on the Thursday as the two artists are setting it up. For more information, visit karenjoyart.
weebly.com or www.stuart-feurtado-

photography.co.uk