Gateway Gallery

 

The Gateway Gallery has been delivered in partnership with the Luton Cultural Service Trust, with a view to creating exposure for local artists within the Airport arrivals area, as well as giving airport passengers greater access to local artistic talent. Sian Pearce, Community Relations Executive for London Luton Airport said 'We are delighted to give local artists the opportunity to display their work in the Airport, not only does it provide great exposure for the artist, it enhances the passenger experience.
NOW SHOWING IN THE GATEWAY GALLERY University of Bedfordshire Latvian Printmakers London Luton Airport has teamed up with the University of Bedfordshire to showcase an exhibition by Latvian printmakers. The prints, by students and alumni of the University of Bedfordshire’s Art and Design department cover themes of distance, travel, nostalgia and folktale and are currently on show in the Airport terminal’s Gateway Gallery. Rachel Gannon, from the University of Bedfordshire, commented, ‘We are delighted to showcase the work of our Latvian students in partnership with the Airport. The exhibiting artists are from a variety of creative backgrounds; from fine art to illustration. The print making tradition is part of Latvia’s rich cultural heritage and we hope the prints will capture the imagination of the Airport’s passengers, including those arriving at London Luton from Latvia itself.

 

PREVIOUS ARTISTS

Anne- Marie Stijelja



Anne-Marie says of her work ‘My latest body of work comprises used stamps as a medium, incorporating them into canvases that explore a wide range of themes. For this exhibition I have selected a mix of pieces that help to reinforce the idea of place or arrival, and includes portraits of the Queen in her Diamond Jubilee year that can be seen as a welcome to people arriving from far off lands.

The butterfly mosaics echo the idea of freedom and flight and contain an exciting array of world travelled stamps reflecting the diversity of our visitors and reinforcing the fact that people like them help form the very fabric of our modern nation.’

Anne-Marie’s work can be seen on display in the Gallery until September.

Cecilia Gatehouse

The exhibition, simply called Journey, uses wire to depict people on the move and will be on display until February 2012.

Commenting on the exhibition Cecilia said, “I am fascinated by the journeys people take in life, each unique and directed by the choices we make or the choices that are made for us. These individual journeys form us into who we are, giving us experiences and memories of our own. The use of colour to highlight the artwork in some places, but no colour in others makes the image recede and fade just as memories do. The inclusion of found objects such as buttons, lace and beads makes the viewer look a bit closer".

Cecilia’s work can also be viewed at www.ceciliagatehouse.co.uk

 

 

Sarah Terry

Textile practitioner Sarah Terry is the latest artist to exhibit at London Luton’s Gateway Gallery.

In 2004 Sarah was long listed for the Hand&Lock Hand embroidery prize, and graduated in 2006 with a degree in Embroidery from the Manchester Metropolitan University. In 2007, she set up her business 'Guerilla Embroidery' and has been making unique embroidered artworks and running workshops since then. Her work is in public and private collections all over the world, including the USA, Australia and Europe, and the Tate Britain. Her work can also be viewed at www.guerilla-embroidery.co.uk

 

 

Dionne Ible
Dionne is a member of the British Association for Modern Mosaic (BAMM) and runs mosaic art workshops. She is experienced in working with a variety of groups including community and special needs groups. She also exhibits at various art and craft venues.

Dionne says ‘“My mosaics embrace my African culture where I have tried to portray African art in a different style. My inspiration comes from a variety of sources from existing images to thoughts and ideas from the ether. Using a blend of earth tones in my mosaics from a selection of smalti, gems, unglazed ceramic, vitreous glass and stained glass, I try to capture the uniqueness of Africa as seen through my eyes and the eyes of my ancestors”. 

 

David Lowther
David trained at Luton, Nottingham and Goldsmiths Colleges of Art and taught art in Bedfordshire for 25 years. He took early retirement from teaching in 2002 and has spent most of the time since then painting.

David says ‘ This set of paintings is a combination of work freely based on Seamus Heaney’s poem "Storm on the Island." and on the line from the same anthology "All I have known is a door into the dark" I wanted to relate their evocation of mans struggle and vulnerability` to a more personal interpretation of things being out of balance, threatened and disturbed. They have been developed from combinations and re-workings of small imaginative drawings, and jottings, and have evolved into paintings which hover between reality and abstraction. They exist in an in-between place, on the edge of recognition, more ambiguous and interesting because of it, and more concerned with evoking different sensations and feelings. ‘

 

Caroline Kirton
My work has developed into a series of snap shots of how I view the ups and downs of teenage life, by observing my daughters and their friends. It is an ongoing study of my relationship with my daughters as they progress through their teenage years, and considers how this relationship is always evolving. My work is also concerned with the issues of control and how young people often feel they have no real control over their lives because of parental and official boundaries. In addition I am trying to come to terms with the issues associated with letting go, as I try to rationalise my own thoughts and feelings, of having to allow my children to grow up and become independent people in their own right.

In my practice I use a combination of fabrics, free machine embroidery, appliqué, and screen-printing to create a moment in time through large-scale drawings. My pieces start with a saying or an overheard conversation and can be titled or left to the audience to interpret what the starting point may have been.

Emma Barry
Recent University of Bedfordshire graduate Emma Barry is the new artist to display her work at the Gateway Gallery.

Emma says: My work explores ways in which the paint can be used and is combined with the exploration of imagery that has been sourced from popular household decoration. I class my work as being playful yet considered as each layer of the painting is planned. The juxtaposition of graphical and gestured marks creates a visual journey across the surface of the painting for each viewer to experience.

Isla Woiwod
Isla says "My paintings are inspired by many visual images that I come across in my everyday life: a visit to the beach; a fleeting sight of distant people on a windy day; the structure and lines of the fields I pass every day; a visit to a nature reserve providing a different landscape; a walk in a wood, sun rays through the trees; or just walking over the fields in the snow.

Exotic trips abroad also provide inspiration, from colourful plants of the rain forest to the green sands of Tenerife's volcanic hills. There are so many subjects to paint; the one constant thing about my work is the colour. I love colour and all its many combinations. I use it to express an emotional response to a time and place. It’s very exciting and uplifting when the piece `works`."

James Falvey
James says that he paints "In between the day job, decorating and fending off the family".

A childhood obsession with Marvel comics led to years of doodling and, ultimately, an Arts Foundation Course in the bohemian surroundings of Barnfield College, Luton. 

Opting for a career in Product design - to 'help people and make the world a better place' - he embarked on years of designing rivet machines, novelty boxer shorts and milk bottles. But creativity isn't that easily crushed and the doodling continued in the form of cartoons which were variously published, bought or used on the boxer shorts. It was only a matter of time before they mutated into Pop Art and found their way onto canvas.

 
David H Jones
David lives and works in the Berkshire village of Lambourn. He was born in Wallasey, Merseyside and studied painting at Bristol West of England College of Art in the 1970’s. 

Colour and pattern are the dominant elements of David’s acrylic paintings, exploring themes of circulation and rotation. Visits to Turkey and Tunisia in 2006/7 had an important influence on the work. In Turkey he was mesmerized by Islamic ceramic tiles. In Tunis he visited the Archeological Museum to see the collection of Roman Mosaics. The tessellated surface patterns of the mosaics and repetitive motifs of tile patterns initiated experiments which developed into this series of paintings. Ideas combining these influences provided working structures for paintings, enabling a sequence of explorations, evaluations and continuous change, until the painting was finally resolved.

The sensuality and excitement of the visual experience and his response to it drives this work. The paintings play upon the viewer’s cognitive response to rhythmic pattern and contrasting colour. The sequences of colours on a common ground create a restless and often alarming visual response as patterns emerge from seemingly random marks. The paintings are further enriched with a high build of paint and textured surfaces.

Deidre Porter-Hanson
Deidre is a Bedfordshire artist who during her adult life has lived and worked in the UK and Africa. Since 2000, however, has made her home in Bedfordshire and has come to love and greatly enjoy the history and landscape of the area. 

Deidre explains “Traditionally human societies have identified with their location, with a sense of belonging to the land they occupy. These paintings are an exploration of identity with, of and through our local landscape.

Bedfordshire, this area of understated, quiet beauty was once subject to the powerful forces of earth movements, tidal deposition and glacial erosion throughout an unimaginable vastness of time. Its history can literally be unearthed in the geology of the area.

These paintings make reference to some of the processes and formations associated with these periods of upheaval and the on-going developments in the physical landscape”.

 

Ben Hodson
Ben’s bespoke Airport exhibition, named Lutopia, is composed of large-scale striking photomontages (up to 1m x 2.2m) which were created by photos taken in rapid succession and show a whole scene caught in the equivalent of one second of time. Ben supplements these montages with black and white still images, similar to those of the street photographers of the mid 20th Century and suggests that these two elements give the viewer an insight into London Luton Airport through different eyes. 

Ben, who lives in Dunstable, said “this project looks at Luton as a whole although this exhibition will specifically centre on the Airport. I’m interested in the passing of time and photography's ability to fragment it and freeze a brief moment. I cannot think of a better subject than the Airport when considering time; the operation of the Airport is time critical and it one of the few places where almost everyone is aware of what the time is.”

All of the pictures for Ben's exhibition were taken at London Luton Airport and focus on the Airport employees, passengers and landscapes.
 

Cindy Olsen
Cindy is a teacher and art co-ordinator at local school, Dallow Primary.Cindy runs workshops with a fellow artist for adults and children in a variety of settings and said ‘I have been involved in painting, printing and photography for many years, most recently I have moved into the area of 3D Art working on sculpture and I am developing the skills related to jewellery making’.
 

Paul Francis
Paul, who lives in Ampthill, said "I was born in Luton and lived about 10 mins from the Airport. We used to come up here a lot when we were kids to watch the planes. When we were older we used to cruise through in our cars. The airport was small then and things have changed a lot. I’m not keen on describing my paintings in detail – they are whatever you think they are. What I will say is many of them, like the airport and any dynamic environment, reflect constant change and renewal".  Paul paints mainly in acrylics on large canvases that aim to dominate rather than blend into the background.
 

Jill Taylor
Jill Taylor, who is a member of the Artists Network Bedfordshire, was the second artist to exhibit at the London Luton Airport Gateway Gallery. For the last 14 years she has been a practicing artist both in the Netherlands and the UK, and now works and lives in Ampthill. Her unique London Luton Airport exhibition was called ‘Bits and Bobs’ focused on bold colours, symbols and mixed media, employing a rough feel to the paintings.
 

Janis Coles
Janis Coles, who is a member of the Artists Network Bedfordshire, was the first artist to exhibit in the Gateway Gallery. Her exhibition work consists of photographs of flowers and plants. She likes to explore effects of light, which in nature are often transient or overlooked. These are either captured in natural light by waiting for the correct lighting conditions or she replicates these in a studio, often finding more detail using macro photography and unusual perspectives.

 

To view Local-News.tv's report of the Gateway Gallery opening please visit our video library section.