Natural connection

VISITORS who enjoyed the Connected exhibition at the Old Fire Station Gallery in Henley just over a year ago will be delighted to hear a revised version is now its way.

The first show featured the work of four women, Cat Croxford, Liz Harvey, Wendy Hodges and Sue Mundy, inspired by nature.

Now Cat, Liz and Wendy are returning with Connected II and have been joined by three other women, Tess Chodan, Marion Royle and Anne Guttormsen Fraser.

Cat, who grew up locally, says: “Connected was brilliant. We really enjoyed it and Liz and I decided that we wanted to keep it going.

“The idea is to keep changing the artists. A couple of these women are very new to Henley so there’s going to be things that visitors haven’t seen before.

“The theme of being connected is about each artist and how we know each other.

“I’m collaborating with Tess this year in a couple of other exhibitions. We’d known each other through
Instagram and my partner bought one of her pieces for me for my birthday.”

Cat’s art explores our relationship with trees and she captures what it feels like to walk in the woods using expressive and colourful brush marks to create light-filled and dappled forest scenes.

Tess’s artwork is more unusual as she combines butterflies from very old collections with artworks to create two- and three-dimensional pieces. “I’d never seen anything like it,” says Cat. “I went to her studio and we instantly hit it off.”

Anne is Norwegian but based in Switzerland and used to be a student at the JoeDaisy studio in Mapledurham, when Cat ran it with her mother Caroline Hulse.

Cat says: “The three of us became very good friends and ended up going on painting holidays together.

“Sadly, my mum died in October. At the funeral, Anne came over and I mentioned to her about this exhibition as I really wanted her to join. She brings a completely different voice as her work’s very quirky.

“Mum was a born and bred artist — she was always painting. She had a couple of exhibitions at the Old Fire Station Gallery around the early Nineties and I found some old photographs from one of them. Anne is coming over for the whole exhibition, while Liz, Tess and I will be there for a ‘meet the artists’ day.”

Liz, from Henley, has spent 28 years teaching in the UK and abroad as well as painting.

Her oils and drawings explore light and form, layers and surface, tension and balance.

She says: “There will always be teaching in my life and that’s brilliant but the connection with Cat has really helped me develop as an artist.

“The work that I’m showing is a series of my landscape lines and tree paintings.

“What’s lovely is that one of the other people exhibiting is Marion, who was my very first head of department when I started teaching 28 years ago. She has moved on from teaching into her life as an artist and that’s what I’m looking to do.” Marion is from Lymington in Hampshire.

Her oil paintings represent the world of sailing and her use of cold wax adds texture to the coastal birds featured in her art.

Wendy Hodges, who is an art teacher at Gillotts School in Henley, creates art that reflects her passion for pattern, texture, surfaces and colour.

She seeks out the beauty of natural forms wherever she travels, finding particular inspiration in the coastal areas of Devon, Cornwall and Dorset.

• Connected II is at the Old Fire Station Gallery in Upper Market Place, Henley, from Thursday, March 30 to Monday, April 3, from 10am to 4pm daily. There will be a private view on Friday, March 31 from 6pm to 8pm and a chance to meet the artists on Saturday, April 1.