Lynette Kay studied with Charles Howard at the Froebel Institute, University of London and was offered a place at the Royal College of Art. Her painting draws on a profound interest in the connections between music, colour, shape and texture in the environment.

Lynette was brought up in Formby and spent her childhood beside the sea and she is currently based in Oxfordshire but has lived, travelled and exhibited around the world. Her work is influenced by Picasso and Renoir as well as Inuit art in Canada and tribal art in South Africa. In recent years her work has been greatly influenced by John Hoyland, Cy Twombly, Richard Kidd and Gerhard Richter.

Lynette Kay’s paintings are often concerned with how the paint is applied and reacts with different media. The base is treated in various ways - materials are applied in an unconventional manner and paints are mixed to allow colour separation when dry. Recent work is larger and on unprimed cotton duck with acrylics.

Lynette Kay speaking about her practice said “Georges Braque once said, “making a painting is like taking a journey” and for me, the journey is often led by music. The music dictates the starting point and the colour that is so central to my work. Whenever I hear a piece of music, I see explicit colours, movement, shapes and textures in my head - a phenomenon, where one sense overlaps another, known as "Synaesthaesia".

Nic Corke, curator and owner of the Corke Gallery said “I am delighted to be showing Lynette’s stunning paintings which express her dazzling passion for life and its contradictions. Lynette successfully negotiates the boundaries between structured formalism and expressive, intuitive abstraction. Her paintings leave the viewer with an insight into a new reality, untapped emotions or senses through her bold and varied palette which combines delicate details amongst sharp brushstrokes.”

All work is for sale and admission is free - picture marked with a red dot have been sold.

Click here to view / download a pdf of the work available to buy in the show.

PORTRAITS GROUP SHOW

A collection of works by artists from the UK and Romania showing the many diverse styles of portraiture used from the late 1400's to the present day

Peter Edwards

Winner of the 1994 BP Portrait Award whose work hangs in the National Portrait Gallery in London, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, National Museum Wales, Ulster Museum, Belfast, National Library of Wales, St Andrews University, Birmingham University, Warwick University, Ferens Gallery, Hull, National Museums Liverpool (portrait of Willy Russell), Williamson Art Gallery, Birkenhead, Moma Wales, St Georges hospital, London, Sheffield University, Manchester University. Peter Edward's website

Emma Tooth and John Afflick

Combine traditional fine art painting styles and methods to create paintings which are familiar yet unique, referencing work created by master painters but using additional symbolism or members of the public who are transformed through the medium of fine art painting.

View Emma Tooth's paintings on YouTube

Emma Tooth's website

John Affleck's website

Radu Belcin, Flavia Pitiș, Aurel Tar and Francisc Chiuariu

These four Romanian artists are driven by European scepticism which is the present reality in Eastern Europe and their work is influenced by the way Romania’s history, cultural experiences and its current economic power or lack of it affect their lives. The work selected for this show is a snapshot of this new reality and its effects on people and society in Romania. Lack of freedom and identity issues are brought to the fore by Radu Belcin’s realist paintings, childhood in the consumer society is the focus of the Francisc Chiuariu’s series titled ”Forever Ikea”, Flavia Pitiș works with close-up childish gestures combined with the habits of the adults and Aurel Tar’s pop art style captures the strong hold that the USSR held over its empire states.

View the work by the Romania artists View paintings in the show on YouTube

Meesh

Graduated from Liverpool John Moore’s this year, creates haunting portraits which capture the pure emotion she attaches to the subject matter.

RANDOM

Stencil art has brought street art alive and enabled artists to quickly create detailed art works which are hard to ignore. For this show RANDOM has created a collection of large and small portraits which include: David Hockney, Bessie Bradock & Arthur Dooley. RANDOM creates his portraits and images with up to 12 separate paper stencils which each take hours to cut out with a scalpel and he was recently asked to paint on the ‘Fun Boat’ on the Dee a couple of weeks ago and it was filmed and in now online at YouTube

Paul Bywater

Portraits in pencil of characters from Spaghetti Westerns with weather beaten and craggy features which Paul sees as landscapes that convey a mythical gravitas all of their own. His recent show in Arena sold 21 original drawings. View the collection of pencil drawings by Paul Bywater on YouTube

Huw Lewis Jones

Huw is greatly influenced by the work of fellow Welsh artist Kyffin Williams and he has created four large portraits for this exhibition.

Mike Goodwin

A graphic artist by profession who has created a series of prints featuring his own characters as well as a portrait of John Lennon. Mike has recently enjoyed success at the Liverpool Art Fair where he sold many of his distinctive unique prints.

View Mike's drawings on YouTube

Ken Bullock

Ken was for many years a professional sign writer creating a wide variety of signs, large and small using traditional handwriting and poster brush work as well as making massive signs for football grounds and major businesses across the UK. Ken now uses his creative skills to paint and make various artworks and in this show he has painted a portrait of the French actor Yves Montand in Laveu.