Five & Five x Two Women Artists Talk

An art discussion between two contemporary female artists, one working within abstraction and the other in a figurative manner , about their work and the  work of five chosen women artists (each working within a similar historical chronological time period) that have influenced them.

During the talk and discussion, Bonnie Brown and Debbie Lee will cover their work, life, and influences.
Images of their work will be shown, demonstrating the different approaches to their ideas and subject matter, including their processes and mediums.

An audience discussion will take place at the end of the initial presentation and discussion.

Examples of Bonnie and Debbie’s work will be on show in the gallery space.

‘ My work encompasses drawing, painting, print and animation. It explores themes of multi-generational storytelling, childhood memories and play. Ideas are developed as I move between different media. Storytelling has formed a continuous thread in my artwork. I believe in the power of art to communicate beyond language and to heal.’  – Debbie Lee

‘Connections and process are at the heart of my practice. It is the relationship between aspects of the natural elements, such as, light and water which often trigger ideas. Observations made whilst out on the edge of the sea in Purbeck, the liminal boundary between land, sea and air, the static and the moving. How the light effects these elements that intrigues. The sense of the fleeting, the changing atmosphere caused by that interaction, its fragility, transience and hope for something new or transformed.
Boundaries, edges, negative shapes that often repeat and build up an organic rhythm of their own, from transparent to solid, still to chaotic, claustrophobic to open spaces.
These observations are made in a response to my regular runs in the Purbeck landscape in all weathers and times of day. This means from early morning to night runs with a headtorch. Then explored in the sketchbooks from memory, to remove that literal, direct translation into one that is more personal, unpredictable and selective. They are memories that are often on the edge of recognition, not quite pinned down.
My sketchbooks offer a space to manipulate and riff on composition, colour, tonal relationships, scale and mark until the visual language is found and can be worked out further onto sheets of paper or canvases. These works embrace an unpredictability to enable the image to take its own course with a kind of glimpsed presence of a hidden history.
The aim or intention with the finished works is always to slow down the viewer to a more reflective state, towards stillness.’- Bonnie Brown