Paintings to be exhibited among plants at art show

AN art exhibition is to be held in polytunnels at the Herb Farm in Sonning Common next month.

Paintings and pottery will be on display among the plants at the nursery in Peppard Road and visitors will be able to meet the seven contributing artists.

The show will be held on Saturday and Sunday, September 2 and 3 from 10am to 4pm daily.

Painter Maria Meerstadt, who is organising the show and will be exhibiting some of her work, said: “It has been running for about five or six years. It’s a venue that’s a bit different and it will be lovely to have the paintings among the herbs.”

The other exhibitors are painters Liz Chaderton, Marion Pyke, Sue Reeves, Clare Buchta and Sue Carter and ceramicist Helen Ormerod.

Ms Meerstadt said: “Six of us are painters but we all have very different styles. I am a painter inspired by nature, so I do a lot of landscapes and flowers and animals — everything except humans.

“Clare is also a landscape painter but we have very different styles. We both paint in oil but she uses water-based paints and her work is delicate and ethereal whereas mine is quite loud and colourful.

“My sister, who lives in France, actually called me and said, ‘I’ve discovered this English landscape artist who you would really like’ and it was Clare.

“Helen makes amazing ceramic panels and bird baths for gardens, jugs and other really colourful pieces for inside the home.” David Burton, who runs the Herb Farm, said: “It’s quite a nice little setting for the show. It will be lovely if the weather is nice but even if it rains the art is under cover so it will also be fine.

“The end of the season here is always quieter so people can come and peruse at their own pace.”

Ms Meerstadt currently exhibits her work all year round in a shed at the Herb Farm, having taken over from Henley artist Sarah Pye, who is a friend.

She said: “It will be nice to be out of the hut and in the garden centre with people and chat to them about the art.

“They are usually really nice people that come. They ask a lot of questions and really appreciate the work we put on.

“Once I did a show in Essex and people were looking at the art saying, ‘I don’t want to buy that, I could buy that for 99p down in the store in town’.

“Saturday is usually a bit slower as a lot of people are doing their shopping but it builds slowly and Sunday is usually quite busy.”

Ms Meerstadt has known Ms Pye for 12 years. She said: “We both started out as raw artists trying to work out ‘where do you go’ and ‘how do you hang a painting?’

“Now we are professional artists, exhibiting in galleries but we do like to laugh about those days.

“We started with pop-ups in Wokingham. We had three different ones and then we had a street gallery in Windsor for two years where we exhibited in a gazebo.

“It was fine until it rained and it was freezing in the winter.”