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England is a Forest

A selection of work from the England is a Forest Project.

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Small Works CIC

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Artist-led Curation & Workshops
London
Beautiful (and aptly titled) new work by Helen Bai Beautiful (and aptly titled) new work by Helen Baines now available on website. Link in profile. Helen Baines, Slow season shift, 2024, Oil on reclaimed wooden panel, 10.5x12.5cm - The natural world in all its complexity is at the heart of Helen’s practice. It is an intimacy with the landscape and a sense of embeddedness that she seeks to locate in her work. She is interested in the stories that imbue landscape with meaning and significance, notions of transcendence; where we end and nature begins, and our own emotional geography. Helen meditates on our place within the more-than-human world, exploring narratives from history, ecology and folklore and shaping them with her own embodied experience of nature. Helen is currently enrolled in a third year on the Turps Correspondence Course. She graduated from Epsom School of Art with a BA (Hons) in Graphic Design and later went on to study printmaking at The Art Academy London. Recent selected exhibitions include the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, Royal Scottish Academy Annual Exhibition and the ING Discerning Eye at the Mall Galleries. Her work has been acquired by Art Acumen for Freshfields’ Annual Exhibition of works on paper, and is held in private and public collections including the V&A Print Archive and the Scarborough Gallery and Museums Trust. . #contemporaryart #contemporarypainting #landscapepainting #abstractlandscape #gezellig #artcollector #artonwalls
WINTER MAKERS MARKET today at @photobookcafe Come WINTER MAKERS MARKET today at @photobookcafe Come and have a look! Sunday 15th December 10:00-18:00 The day will see Mulled Wine, Grateful Pies and Special Toasties. Evening Music 18:00 - late to be announced. No RSVP is required all are welcome. 4 Leonard Circus Shoreditch, London, United Kingdom EC2A 4DQ
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Lovely new work available on website. Min Angel, Lovely new work available on website. Min Angel, Between-whiles #4, 2024, Mixed media on gesso board, 30.5x25.4cm - Min Angel’s multidisciplinary practice is concerned with touch and a love of materials.  Carlo Levi’s titular phrase ’The future has an ancient heart’ is an important lodestar for her as she works across figuration and abstraction. Through ambiguous relationships between form and no form she considers the warp and weft of life, questioning where one thing stops and another begins and the nature of exchange between material objects and the physical, visual encounter. Her practice is informed by the experiential, by intuition and imagination and her study of the ancient arts of Zen mediation and Qigong. - Min Angel lives and works in London. Her work has been shown nationally and internationally in Cyprus, Greece, Netherlands, Russia, Mexico and Romania. She regularly shows in London. Recent highlights include Exeter Contemporary Open, September 2024 and Jacksons Painting Prize, June 2023. In 2018 she was the recipient of the KPP Prize for Forms Assembled int he Light. In 2021 she co-founded the artists platform BLINK to help build a generous artist community and avoid the expensive open submissions system by getting work out of the studio into exhibition spaces. BLINK curates shows twice a year. Angel holds a BA (Hons) in Art History, University College London (First Class), BA (Hons) Painting, Camberwell College of Arts (First Class), MFA Fine Art, Slade School of Fine Art. From 2018-2021 she studied with Turps Painting School.  Her work is held in private collections and public institutions. - #contemporaryart #contemporarypainting #artcollector #affordableart #smallworks #artonwalls #supportartists
Are you on the hunt for thoughtful gifts? We are h Are you on the hunt for thoughtful gifts? We are here for you - the art of giving is what we do very well at Small Works. We have a beautiful selection of artwork available in our store. Why not support living artists? Have a browse on our website (link in bio) Message us if you have any questions or need advice. Featured artists: MIN ANGEL MARTIN CLARKSON JUSTINE FORMENTELLI LEE JOHNSON HELEN BAINES HANNAH ROLLINGS SARAH TEW FIONA CHAMBERS REBECCA BYRNE SYLWIA NARBUTT UZMA SULTAN MONICA PEREZ VEGA #giftideas #collectart #artofgifting #livingartists #artgifts #collectingart #thoughtfulgifts
Ever wake up trying to immerse yourself back into Ever wake up trying to immerse yourself back into your dream? That’s what I think of when looking at the gorgeous work of @sarahtewartist Visit shop to see more of her work. Link in profile. Sarah Tew, Submerge 2, 2020, dye and salt on photograph, 10x15cm . Sarah Tew (b. 1987) was brought up in the Cumbrian Lake District, Northwest England. She now lives and works in London since graduating from Slade School of Fine Art, MFA Fine Art in 2019. Her practice incorporates painting, installation, and site-responsive work. With interests that lie within the physical interactions of materials and their inheritance of cultural and historical contexts in relation to landscape. She questions the language and values of visual imagery in relation to the physical realm. The work looks out to a broader questioning of the fragilities and endurances of nature. Landscape is a term which she continues to unpick. Walking in the footsteps of artists before her as a research tool; the idea, experience and history of site/sight is unearthed.
SOLD. Hannah Rollings, Valentine, oil and acrylic SOLD. Hannah Rollings, Valentine, oil and acrylic on paper, 26.5x21.5cm Hannah has recently returned from a residency in Hong Kong, exploring the landscape through plein air painting. . Through an autoethnographic approach, Hannah works en plein air through walks and large-scale painting, hoping to bring to life the immersive location and elements of ritual. Her current painting practice comes from a need and desire to reconnect with nature. “Observing and slowing down my time in the landscape has helped me to appreciate a simplified honesty that doesn’t require further narration.” . Hannah Kershaw (Rollings) (b.1985, UK). In 2014 Hannah embarked on a practice based AHRC funded PhD through Kingston University and the London Doctoral Design Centre looking at picturing trees where her love of nature and the pull of the outdoors gained further importance in her practice. Working collaboratively with the Forestry Commission and school children developing site specific interactive work that sought to encourage a reconnection with nature, ‘From Screen to Green’. Through painting plein air, Hannah seeks to connect with her surroundings through an immersive painting experience exploring an emotive response to colour and mark making; culminating into a practice that sits somewhere between abstraction and representation. . The painting is available on our website, link in profile.
We are very happy to share with you a beautiful ne We are very happy to share with you a beautiful new series of paintings by Lee Johnson available in our store now. “Since my father’s dementia diagnosis, I have been caring for him in Suffolk, taking long walks in ‘Constable Country’ (as Constable said: “all those things that lie on the banks of the Stour, they made me a painter”) to take a break from the pain of the situation. This has led to a prolonged period of painting trees in a number of ways - not for their individual form as such, but more as a symbol - how they are representative of not only landscape but also resilience and connectivity. Indeed, recent research shows that trees communicate through their complex root systems, so they are not simply isolated entities but belong to a wider family or community, protecting and nurturing their young, and growing stronger together with - and because of - each other. This is a good analogy for my paintings, which are also not isolated entities, but are connected to each other - motifs, colours, fluidity of line, memories are all elements that link seemingly different paintings together.” Johnson was selected for the prestigious John Moores Painting Prize at Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, in 2010, and the Contemporary British Painting Prize in 2025, and was the winner of the inaugural Lido Stores Open, Margate in 2021. He has exhibited widely, most notably in public institutions including Hastings Contemporary; Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge; Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool Huddersfield Art Gallery; and Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art, Sunderland, Ar Tower Agora, Athens; Gozo Contemporary, Malta. 1.Lee Johnson Moon Through the Trees, 2023-24 oil, oil pastel on canvas 41 x 31 cm 2.Lee Johnson Tree in Suffolk II, 2024 oil on wood 46 x 46 cm 3.Lee Johnson Tree in Suffolk III (misty day), 2024 oil on canvas 41 x 31 cm
We’re loving this moody autumnal landscape by Ma We’re loving this moody autumnal landscape by Martin Clarkson. Sombre skeletal trees twist into the misty distance, whilst the foreground offers a bit of warmth to the otherwise chilly scene. These works poignantly capture the current season and mood. This is one of two new works by Martin, now available on website. Link in profile. Martin Clarkson, Ancient Oaks of Sherwood: No. 46, 2022, oil on panel, 30x20x3cm . Martin Clarkson, (1988) is a British artist living and working in Nottinghamshire, England. Clarkson studied fine art painting at Loughborough University. He has worked over last decade on various creative ventures; working as painting technician at Loughborough University, he studied at the Santa Catalina Art School in South Spain, curated and shown work in various exhibitions around the Nottingham art scene as well as hosting various talks and educational workshops as accompaniment to exhibits or as a visiting artist to schools or colleges.  From 2024 to present, Clarkson has shifted his approach from working primarily within a studio context, to painting En Plein Air, focusing first hand on the natural worlds  of the British archipelago. After this shift in his practice, Clarkson was invited to show his ‘ Ancient Oaks of Sherwood ‘ series as a guest artist with The‘ Obejvak Project Space  in central Prague. More recently in the UK, he has been interviewed for The Ancient Tree Forum, as accompaniment to a commission made  by Sherwood Forest NNR, and has since continued to participate  in various group shows with focus on  the ‘Ancient Oaks of Sherwood’ series. Clarkson has worked in various private collections, including Australia, China, Europe and the UK. . #sherwoodforest #ancienttrees #moodylandscape #contemporarylandscapes #contemporarypainting #smallworks
We have very exciting update for you in our shop. We have very exciting update for you in our shop. A beautiful series of ceramic wall-mounted work by Justine Formentelli are now available through our website. Link in bio for more details. DM any inquiries. 🪸 Through undulating forms and organic shapes I interrogate the frontiers of the self, grounded in a body and existing in the surrounding world. I use elements of landscape as symbols of the vastness that surrounds us. Although figures are absent, the work is very much about how the external world permeates us at a deep level and how we are all connected by this existential flow traversing us. Attempting to map out the interaction of the internal and the external, I am trying to convey this slow movement of living, breathing, becoming and changing that animates all living beings. Two of these pieces were parts of an installation including paintings exhibited last June. Each medium has its own language and has the potential to emphasise an aspect in particular and I wanted to see what the glossy sleekness of ceramics would bring to the conversation. They almost appear slightly wet, as if they have just emerged from the sea. The way the pieces are shown together, It looks like the glazed shapes escaped or slipped away from the paintings and are wondering off in a new space. It turns out that I have always liked working with shapes with uneven, organic contours. I used to paint on hand sculpted panels but then felt constrained and went back to more standard shapes. And now it seems that the ceramics are a way to get back into more flexible contours. Justine Formentelli spent her childhood living in the Caribbeans, the island of Reunion and Morocco. After 11 years in the United States, where she studied Illustration and worked as a production designer at Harper’s Bazaar, she traveled around the world for a year before settling back in Europe. She is now based in London with her husband and two sons. She recently graduated from City and Guilds of London Art School with an MA. She has participated in numerous exhibitions in the United States and Europe. #giftideas #contemporaryart #artcollector #ceramicrelief #ceramicreliefsculpture
A few highlights from our visit to Frieze this yea A few highlights from our visit to Frieze this year. Lots of great work but also feels too much like IKEA. Art supermarket… Did you like it?
We are delighted to revisit this lovely work by @u We are delighted to revisit this lovely work by @uzma.sultan which is available on our website, link in bio. This work was part of the ‘England is a Forest’ project at Sluice [Vernacular] 2024 at The Minories in Colchester 14-16 June, 2024. . Uzma Sultan, Cherry blossom, oil pastel and oil on canvas, 20x15cm . Uzma participated in the Hamburg Affordable Art Market over the past weekend and has exhibited internationally in solo and group shows. . “During the covid lockdowns, I became very interested in nature and drawing plein air- a very good excuse to be outdoors. That took me drawing, in local gardens and green areas. For this project, I chose the cheal’s weeping cherry tree, on my recent visit to the Kew gardens. Also known as kiku shidare zakura and has pink pom-pom like flowers. Just delightful!” . @sluice__ @theminories @smallworksartgallery #englandisaforest #sluicevernacular2024 #treedrawing #landscapepainting @uzma.sultan
We have this lovely piece by Helen Baines availabl We have this lovely piece by Helen Baines available in our store. Like all Helen’s work it’s beautifully painted. Small but mighty. Link to the store is in our bio. Helen Baines Time-Keeper, oil on hardback book cover 12x19cm 2024 “The Pedunculate Oak (Quercus Robur) is one of many ancient trees on the Albury Estate in Surrey. William Cobbett, the popular 18th century journalist and author of ‘Rural Rides’, was always delighted when he found himself in what he called “the narrow and exquisitely beautiful vale of Chilworth”, the deep, wooded valley in which Albury lies. The planting of oaks on this land is attributed to the reign of King John, and this venerable oak with a girth of close to 9 meters is one of the oldest in Surrey, standing with a stately gravitas near an avenue of Spanish Chestnuts in Shere Park (part of Albury Park). Having walked and cycled past this tree many times, I never fail to stop and wonder at its great age and size, to imagine the sureness of effort required to establish its root system deep underground over hundreds of years, unhurriedly pushing its branches skywards whilst the great events of history have played out. The oak continues to grow and adapt as trees are wont to do, providing shelter for birds and wildlife and a fertile environment for mosses, lichens and fungi - its resilience a metaphor for hope in an increasingly uncertain world.” Helen Baines is currently enrolled on a third year of the Turps Correspondence Course. She graduated from Epsom School of Art with a BA (Hons) in Graphic Design and later went on to study printmaking at The Art Academy London. Recent selected exhibitions include the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, Royal Scottish Academy Annual Exhibition and the ING Discerning Eye at the Mall Galleries. Her work has been acquired by Art Acumen for Freshfields’ Annual Exhibition of works on paper, and is held in private and public collections including the V&A Print Archive and the Scarborough Gallery and Museums Trust.
We are sending our congratulations and warm wishes We are sending our congratulations and warm wishes to @anya.kashina as she embarks on her MFA at @cityandguilds . May it be a joyous and fruitful journey. 🥂🎨 . Anya Kashina, Silk Flowers, 2023, monotype collage pasted on primed wood panel in artist frame, 21x16x3.5cm This work is available for purchase. Link in bio. . Anya Kashina is a Russian-born, British artist who lives and works in London. She makes paintings and works on paper that are rooted in abstraction. Through the use of mark, colour and scale she creates invented spaces and visually articulates the feelings associated with looking at them. She holds a BA from the University of Leeds and a training qualification from the Moscow State Academic Art Institute named after VI Surikov. She has shown in numerous group shows in London including at the Saatchi Gallery in 2018 and her work is held in private collections in the UK, USA, Russia and France. . #flowers #abstract #smallworks #anyakashina #floral #pastel #contemporaryart #artcollector
One of our favourites in the shop. The energy of t One of our favourites in the shop. The energy of this painting carries the character of the magical atmosphere of Sherwood Forest. Check out website for more details for all the works available at the moment. Martin Clarkson, Ancient Oaks of Sherwood: No. 48, oil on panel, 30x20x3cm 2022 When in the forest, I often begin with a scouting mission. Foraging for ideas, I take note of the tree’s architecture; how its weight sits, where its form flows and jilts in direction, its textures of bark, from smooth, silver growth to broken shards splitting and crumpling like strata. I look for burrs, epicormic shoots, brown rot, corpse-like coatings of lichens, moist mosses and fruiting fungi. On location I use paint in a sculptural and immediate way, responding to the moment and trying to capture the essence of the experience. Through all the subjects that inspire me, there is a resonance of deep time rooted within them. Natural worlds that annihilate the human instant, give way to the sense that we are a very small part of a much older world. Just like the stratification of rock, or the blue memory of a glacier, a tree too wears the passage of time. Etched into their surface is a diary of existence, simultaneously living and dead, a tree’s form flows through growth and decay. Trees are the longest-living examples of a complex natural world. From the symbiotic mutualism trees share with fungi to providing habitats for many specialist fauna to thrive, a tree is a living landscape in its own right. Surely, in this decisive decade, we are facing, planting more native trees, future-proofing habitats through westernisation and managing land with regenerative and sustainable practices in mind, which can only be beneficial for every living thing on earth. - I chose this tree as it is a remarkable example of resilience. Holding on for dear life, it was the presence of a fire that wouldn’t spread through the forest back in the 70s. It continues life with its heartwood completely hollowed into charcoal and from this angle, it appears to defy gravity.”
Beautiful work by Sarah Tew available in shop. Lin Beautiful work by Sarah Tew available in shop. Link in profile. Sarah Tew, Overhang, 2021, dye and salt on photograph, 13x18 cm . Sarah Tew (b. 1987) was brought up in the Cumbrian Lake District, Northwest England. She now lives and works in London since graduating from Slade School of Fine Art, MFA Fine Art in 2019. Her practice incorporates painting, installation, and site-responsive work. With interests that lie within the physical interactions of materials and their inheritance of cultural and historical contexts in relation to landscape. She questions the language and values of visual imagery in relation to the physical realm. The work looks out to a broader questioning of the fragilities and endurances of nature. Landscape is a term which she continues to unpick. Walking in the footsteps of artists before her as a research tool; the idea, experience and history of site/sight is unearthed.
Yes, we have this beauty available in our store. D Yes, we have this beauty available in our store. Don’t miss it. Created by our founder, incredible 🥁@monicaperezvega Monica’s work explores ideas of uncertainty and adaptation and her imagined landscapes sit between nostalgia and unease. Originally from California, she has lived in Montreal, Amsterdam, London and Birmingham, UK. Her memories of home are warped by a changing landscape, and experiences of continually starting over have led to a practice which investigates cycles of change. Her interest in skies is about both transience and presence, as well as a wider concern for the environment. Trees, on the other hand, are anthropomorphic figures which tell a story of steady resilience. Monica paints in a range of media and her sculptures are assembled from found, gifted and reclaimed material, including former paintings. There is an act of letting go within her practice as she embraces endings as beginnings. Interested in the potential between renewal or collapse, she relies on disruption as a search for hope amid precarity. Monica Perez Vega, QEI Oak, oil pastel on paper, 24x32cm, 2024 “According to the Woodland Trust, the tree is the third largest sessile oak tree on record in the UK. While she was magnificent, I was also quite taken by her ladies-in-waiting. Several ancient oaks, chestnuts, and lime trees spotted the rolling green landscape of the Cowdrey estate in Midhurst.” Monica has two exhibitions opening this week: Exeter Contemporary Open and Blink, Room Share 6 ‘Somewhere Between Heaven And Earth’ - both very exciting and in great company.
Precious new work from Fiona Chambers is available Precious new work from Fiona Chambers is available on the website. ‘My Pleasure,’ 2024, oil, acrylic, gesso, pigment, acrylic yarn, wool and latex on jute fabric, 30x30cm. . Fiona’s tactile paintings result from daily drawing and writing rituals which consider the embodied experience of distraction, chance and intuition in contrast to our relationships with new media technology.  Find out more- link in profile. ✨🌈
We are over the moon to have this beautiful pastel We are over the moon to have this beautiful pastel by Rebecca Byrne available in our gallery. Link to the store is in our bio.  Rebecca Byrne, This Ancient Frequency, acrylic gesso, and pastel on paper, 20x30cm 2024 “I often spend time looking at what may be overlooked; in this case I was interested in the root structure of these trees and how they looked like tentacles searching for purchase in the ground. I’ve been reading about how trees are connected to each other underground via Mycelium which create a network for trees to communicate. The idea of a community under our feet is something I find comforting as I reflect on the future of the environment, and I also find the longevity of trees fascinating. I imagine all the people who have come and gone and, through it all, the forest has endured.” Rebecca Byrne is an American artist with a practice based in drawing and painting living and working in London; she works on canvas and aluminum, as well as 9m long paper which she uses to create immersive site-responsive installations that can be rolled up and reinterpreted in another location. Byrne’s uncanny and fantastical landscapes reflect how she mediates the world. Rooted in fragments of memory, reality and fantasy, she explores our relationship to the environment by referencing images of extinct and existing plant life that never actually co-existed, creating pictures of nature in flux with searing colour. Throughout her practice there is an obscured personal narrative; Byrne’s recent work draws from her background growing up in urban Chicago and spending weekends with her parents as they attempted to establish a small organic farm well before most people were considering our relationship to the land. Researching the systems and structures of plants, she uses real and imagined subject matter to propose an alternate natural world. This work was a part of the England is a Forest exhibition at Sluice [Vernacular] Colchester 2024 and is available for purchase in our online shop.
It was love at first sight with this precious Yew It was love at first sight with this precious Yew painting by Lee Johnson.   The Graveyard Where Willy Lott is Buried (study), 2023-24, 24x18cm   This painting was a part of the England is a Forest exhibition at Sluice [Vernacular] Colchester 2024 and is available for purchase in our online shop.   About the work, Johnson writes:   “Since my father’s dementia diagnosis, I have been caring for him in Suffolk, taking long walks in ‘Constable Country’ (as Constable said: “all those things that lie on the banks of the Stour, they made me a painter”) to take a break from the pain of situation.   Discovering Willy Lott’s gravestone in St Mary’s Church, East Bergholt, a few hundred yards from where John Constable grew up (and a further few hundred yards from where my nieces go to school) was a revelation. Willy Lott was a local farmer who rented a cottage from Constable’s father, which still stands today, and can be seen stage-left in ‘The Hay Wain’.   While Willy’s gravestone is unremarkable, a nearby yew tree grows over - and seemingly out of - a now unreadable stone. Yew trees are very common in English graveyards, often planted above graves to provide protection in the afterlife. And this particular yew had a shape not unlike my dad’s brain scan, the near-black yew looking like the end-game of dad’s dementia. For me, this is a perfect subject for a painting...” .   Johnson is a prolific artist, having recently curated the exhibitions: ‘Dancing About Architecture’ at @hyphastudios and ‘Touch-Paper’ at @terrace_gallery . He has an upcoming exhibition with artist Sukey Sleeper at @twoplustwo202 5 Sept-13 Oct (PV 4 Sept 6-8 pm) & is curating the exhibition ‘At Home With the Copelands’ as part of the @blinkandyoullmissitart takeover at Safehouse1 14-15 Sept (PV 13 Sept 6-9pm).   Johnson was selected for the prestigious John Moores Painting Prize at Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool in 2010 and the Contemporary British Painting Prize in 2023, and was the winner of the inaugural Lido Stores Open, Margate in 2021.
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