Open on Saturdays 13, 20 and 27 May and Sundays 14, 21 and 28 May, 10am to5pm

Ben Honisett, Emma Green, Petra Giede-Barnes, Pots of Hope Susie and Jim Crockatt will be exhibiting at City Arts during Open Studios 2023. The artists will be demonstrating how they work each weekend..

You can visit them free of charge on the weekends shown above.

Jim Crockatt thoroughly enjoys making precise incisions into a piece of wood as it rotates at 1300 rpm and seeing the immediate effect of said incision. He has being doing this scary thing for many years and improving with every incision

Petra Giede-Barnes emphasizes that natural world is the most precious resource we humans have.She has made it her task to get us to look closer at it and to learn how wonderful nature actually is when we take the time to engage with it. The textures, colours and contrasts of all of the materials, especially the wood, are her building blocks. Leaving the individual items in their most original state requires a large amount of resources to find the best fit and combination. When Petra started making sculptures in 2014 she finally realised why she had collected boxes full of shells, driftwood, pebbles, stones and other beach finds since childhood. Most of her sculptures are witnesses of her life through the last 20 year

Emma Green thrives on the inspiration the British countryside has to give. The natural world provides imagery, with landscape, plants and especially birds forming the core of Emma’s visual world. Birds have historically been associated with freedom, purity and perhaps even innocence. Their power of flight makes them evocative symbols of liberty, but even in ancient Babylon and China humans have caged them and kept them as pets or possessions. Many of Emma’s works explore this tension; restriction and freedom. The birds are shown framed, tethered or under cloches, denied their freedom, so that they have become objects to be admired.

Benjamin Honisett uses many years of experience as a Graphic Designer and Mixed Media Artist to produce dramatic free-flowing studies and industrial style photography. A relaxed drawing style which relies on strong erratic lines and vibrant colouring techniques bring his landscapes and other studies to life, while his interest in distressed environments and abstract form creates engaging compositional photographs. Some of his recent projects have been based on distressed environments and also the creation of ‘SOUNDSCAPES’ where music is used to influence the paintings he is working on.

Pots of Hope, Susie – Working as a ceramicist to explore some of the many possibilities of clay, Susie’s passion is to combine form, function, and colour and to share optimism. Turning to the solace of creating with clay in the little garden lean-to studio she transformed in our first lockdown and having restored an old kick wheel, she creates mostly wheel thrown ceramic pieces reflecting the uplifting colours of the seasons. Her working process bridges cherishing the sacred of the ordinary, living in the moment and holding trust in future possibilities and opportunities. The impact of her ‘in tune’ approach currently yields unique and exquisite table, home, gift ware, and jewellery that is loved by everyone.

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