ELENA ADAMS

Born in 1960, Elena’s entry into the art world was under the tutorage of Dmitri Beasty, which resulted in a scholarship to Moscow University where she studied under Vladimir Kosinkin.  Following the completion of her degree, in 1987, Elena’s contribution to the arts scene was recognised by entry into the prestigious Moscow Artists Union.

Now settled in the UK, her style has evolved from her formal training in classical Russian art, although its disciplines are still evident in her work.  The spirit of Moscow cultural life, and her protective upbringing has also profoundly shaped her personal understanding of the world that she expresses through her art.  

Her subjects are reminiscent of Film Noir; evoking scenes from Casablanca, prohibition New York or pre-war Berlin, the atmosphere is dark, dangerous and edgy, the people shady yet with a certain glamour.  Elena's pictures convey the sense of an elder’s warning to the young of the perils of a world where fear and hope collide. The experience of the worldly-wise challenges innocence and naivety, and strips away artifice. 

Elena’s paintings create a tension that is slightly disturbing and erotic.  Yet, as ever, the world of the forbidden, where love and lust compete, continues to compel and fascinate the viewer.  Threatening and alluring in equal measure, her work is tranfixing. 

KEITH FULFORD

Keith was born in 1962 in London and although he demonstrated an unusual talent for art as a child, he was talked into pursuing a safe career in teaching. He subsequently felt unfulfilled and after a few years quit in order to embark on a course of artistic study.

After gaining both a diploma and a degree, he went on to achieve an MA in Art and Design, specialising in drawing. This was an intense learning period for Keith and during this time he worked in design related fields and gained considerable professional experience.  He then decided to take a major step and devote himself to becoming a full time professional artist in the challenging field of fine art.

Keith’s lengthy route to becoming a painter has given him a certain artistic integrity, and enabled him to evolve a unique and personal style, clearly reflected in his stunning contemporary work. He is influenced by cinematic imagery and has a natural affection for city life, by the coast and in the landscape. He is equally at home painting light but his paintings always capture drama, atmosphere and mood with imagination and passion.

“The city has two conflicting sides to its personality – reflective and mysterious on the one hand, but bold and theatrical on the other. I love to take this intriguing duality and find within it the grain of an idea that will both engage and uplift people.” 
He has taken on many private commissions over the years and his work has been exhibited at a number of prestigious galleries and events across the UK.

SERGEI INKATOV

Sergei Inkatov, an Estonian artist of Armenian origin, produces original and immediately recognisable paintings, and is achieving increasingly widespread international acclaim.   His work has proved highly collectable in Moscow and St Petersburg, and he has enjoyed successful exhibitions in Germany, Spain, Finland, Russia, USA as well as Estonia.  The renowned and influential Russian Museum in St Peterburg has recently voted Sergei as one of the top artists of the 20th Century and 14 of his works are being published in their commemorative book.  At 37 Sergei is firmly on his way to achieving great success.

Sergei Inkatov’s Easterm Cultural roots stamp his work with mystery and sensuality in the eyes of the European.  What is more, his painting is conditioned by a romantic and festive philosophy of life.  The vivid colours of the old part of Tallinn, in his urban landscapes, or in the rush of wind against the ships sails, in his seascapes.  He has a predeliction for the crooked facades and narrow streets in the old part of Tallinn, the Estonian city he adopted as his own, his second homeland after Baku, where he was born an Armenian. Sergei’s father Vladimir, also a painter, taught him to reproduce the ancient architecture of his native city in watercolours, encouraged him to attend painting and drawing classes, and later to enrol in Baku’s School of Art.

 As a result of military conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, Sergei had to transfer to the Venitsianov School of Art in Tver, Russia.  There he was able to learn the classical and realist painting tradition and steep himself in the creative heritage of the grand masters such as Isaac Levitan and Ilya Repin.  It is through them no doubt, that Sergei developed his ability to capture on canvas the beauty of nature and its changes of light colour and rhythm.  Following his academic education, having by then settled in Estonia with his parents, the artist straight away began to exhibit and entered the art market where his work was in great demand among foreign collectors.

The joy of living, the exaltation of life in all its colour and fullness, is the first thing one perceives in Sergei Inkatov’s pictures, whether the spectator is looking at a sunlit landscape, an old town, a still life or the most abstract composition. 

On his trips abroad, the artist takes notes and makes sketches in which he captures the aroma and essences of cities such as Toledo, with its cobbled streets, and Strasbourg with its facades full of colour.  In Sergei’s work, the architecture of the town’s old quarter is of special importance: houses with time worn facades  lean over and hold each other up.  The painter know how to choose just the right angle to create a focus in which space is narrowed down, the streets crowd in on each other ad the buildings are stretched, and the spectator is immersed in a wonderland where cities are built out of playing card houses that have red, blue and orange roofs.

His still lifes, southern in their forms and colouring are also outstanding. Inanimate objects, natures mortes, containing a pulse of life in every brush stroke.  The citrus aroma of the lemon’s porous rind, the pomegranate smooth and shiny in its ripeness, and the infinite reflections in the glass of a jar are modelled with brushstrokes of colour and impressionist dabs.

In Sergei Inkatov’s canvases colour is the protagonist.  Colour constructs the space, creates the atmosphere and guides the spectator’s gaze.  The dynamic brushstrokes and the dense texture are at the service of colour.  All his work represents a colourful, romantic mythology in which the ancient and modern converge, in which one finds the sun, the sea, the rush of the wind, passion, love and the joy of living

Galina Balashova -Art Critic- Lady Magazine March 2008

LISA GRAA JENSEN RI

Lisa was born in Soborg, Denmark and trained at Sir John Cass School of Art, Whitechapel and the Camberwell School of Art where she gained a BA (Hons) Degree in Graphic Design and Book Illustration.  She became a full time illustrator with BL Kearley Ltd, and has since worked for many book publishers.  Since then she has become a freelance painter and illustrator of books and greetings cards.

Lisa was elected to the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours in 1996 and was presented with the Kingsmead Award in 1997.  Previously, she has won many prizes in the Royal Academy Christmas Card Competition and in 1986 won First Prize. 

Her distinctive style is full of everyday detail and energetic motion.  Her acute perception of, and her obvious fondness for her subjects shine through in the good nature and light- heartedness that is captured in characters we can all recognise.  Her pictures brighten the dullest day and her work makes an attractive addition to any collection.


Shared exhibitions:
Sunday Times/Friedlander-Mall Galleries
CCA Galleries - Farnham, Bath & Cambridge
Laing Exhibition-Mall Galleries
Medici Gallery, London
Guildford House Gallery
New Ashgate Gallery, Farnham
Gomshall Gallery, near Dorking

IVAN LAPPER ARSMA ARCA

As an artist, Ivan is at the top of his field.  His work can be seen in great houses, castles and museums all over the UK, including the Royal Collection. His paintings and drawings have been published in newspapers, magazines and books as well as being shown in art galleries nationwide.

His work is in the fine tradition of representational watercolour and oil media, full of light, atmosphere and meaning. He is equally at home with landscape, architecture and people and has particular skill as a draughtsman.  A highly successful reconstruction artist, Ivan has produced vivid and dramatic reconstructions of historical scenes and characters.
 
He produced 12 paintings of the Tower of London for the Tower Hill Environs Centre, which was opened by the Queen in the summer of 2004.  A further 14 paintings of the Tower, are now in the Royal Collection.

An Associate of the Royal College of Art, Ivan taught Illustration and Life Drawing for forty years at various colleges, including Hornsey College of Art, St Martin's School of Art, the Ruskin School (Oxford University), Camberwell School of Art, and Kingston University.

His recent exhibitions include
• British Modern Masters Exhibition, 2008
• Royal Institute of Oil Painters
• Royal Society of Marine Artists
• Singer & Friedlander/Sunday Times Watercolour    Competition
• Royal Watercolour Society's 21st century Open Exhibition
• Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours
• Discerning Eye
• New English Art Club
• Golden Age of British Illustration
• Tower of London Millenium Exhibition

Charles Pears Award Winner for the Best Painting by a Non Member, in the RSMA Annual Exhibition  2006 2007.
Ivan Lapper was born in Bilston in Staffordshire. From the age of 12 he attended Bilston Art School on day release from school, followed by Wolverhampton College of Art from 1954 to 1959 where he gained a NDD in Illustration. He was at the Royal College of Art from 1959 to 1962, becoming an Associate of the College (ARCA) in Illustration and Engraving.  In October 2008 Ivan was made an Associate Member of the Royal Society of Marine Artists (ARSMA).

LEO McDOWELL RI

Leo has been a member of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours since 1985. He was awarded the Windsor and Newton RI prize in 1990, and his work can be found in many collections, including H.R.H The Prince of Wales' collection of British contemporary paintings. His work is in great demand throughout the world with sell-out exhibitions in Paris and Tokyo as well as the UK.

Leo McDowell was brought up and educated in the North of England. His early paintings were of moorland scenes around Ilkley in Yorkshire. After studying Modern Languages at the Universities of Manchester and Cambridge and History of Art at Innsbruck University, he spent eight years teaching in the Middle East and participated in archaeological studies and excavations in North Africa, Turkey, Cyprus and Jordan.

He painted extensively during this period and his painting showed a clear influence of Islamic and Byzantine art.
Leo's works include interiors, figurative and still-life paintings and his style is between abstraction and figurative representation and uses a variety of media. A number of motifs occur such as a horse and rider, a cat or a vase of flowers, and it is Leo's arrangement, treatment and colour choices which give each work its unique feel.

CHRISTINE RUSSELL SWA

Following her highly successful one-woman shows, Christine’s original work is shown at a number of prestigious galleries throughout the UK and has also been featured in several publications. She exhibits regularly at the Mall Galleries, London, with the Society of Women Artists (SWA), of which she has been a full member since 1996. In 2002 and 2008, she won the President & Vice Presidents’ award for Best Work In Exhibition, and has twice been a finalist for the Daily Mail’s ‘Not the Turner’ Prize.

Christine grew up in London and is entirely self taught. She has been drawing and painting since childhood although the route to a professional painting career has been a diversionary one.

She had a long association with the Royal Opera House, both on and off the stage, and this influence is evident in her work.  Later moving to South Gloucestershire, Christine worked in schools, teaching art and theatre. Meanwhile, she continued to develop her own painting, and by 1993 the demand for her work had become so great that she had little choice but to devote herself to full time painting.

Christine excels in painting high-definition still lifes, executed in oils, watercolours and her favourite medium, pastels. She also includes landscapes, interiors and gardens among her subjects, for which she uses a freer style. Moreover, her passion for observing and capturing the subtle effect of light on a textured surface remains a constant throughout her work.

RAPHAEL SAGAGE

Raphael began painting at the age of seven in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. His source of inspiration has always been the objects of everyday life and the natural world that surrounds him, fascinated by their colours, patterns, shapes and textures. Rather than paint exactly what he sees, Raphael prefers to let his response to his surroundings be guided by his paintbrush.

This vision is reflected in his impressionistic paintings, which include experimental techniques combined with more traditional application of media. He often includes cubist characteristics into his expressionistic style and is considered a forerunner in abstract realism.

Raphael’s pieces have been featured in many group and solo exhibitions, both in the USA and the UK and his work is well represented in both private and corporate collections. Notable collectors include former Senator Max Cleland, Evander Holyfield, Ted Turner, and an array of international and local supporters.

He has served as a professor of Fine Arts at the Ecole National des Arts in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. He has received numerous recognitions and reviews from the United Nations -1990; Christies and Sotherbys, New York -1994; a Proclamation from the City of Atlanta in 1996.

He continues to share his talent and philosophy with other people, encouraging them to realize the importance of art and its various forms rather than being guided by worldly materialistic items.

ROSA SEPPLE RI  SWA

Born in London of Italian/British parents, Rosa spent her formative years living between Venice and London. She acquired a love of art from her Italian grandfather, artist Salvatore Casagrande.

Over the past decade Rosa has become one of the most enigmatic and collectable artists in the UK. Rosa’s rapid ascent to success and acclaim can be attributed to her natural flair for depicting the small pleasures that delight both the eye and heart. 

Her paintings have a delightful spontaneity and naivety that is completely original. They are irreverent, sometimes risqué, usually playful, but above all, immensely joyful. Rosa happily flouts conventions such as perspective, scale and proportion.  Instead there is an intensity of colour, unusual layered collages of media and texture, and closer examination reveals a skillfully crafted complexity.

Rosa succeeds in bringing joy to the viewer in a unique way, depicting the moods and pleasures of a fantastical, somewhat dreamlike world that is magical, whimsical and heart warming.  People float and fly, tease, party, dance and flirt, buildings lean and topple, flowers sparkle and animals smile.

She was already a member of the Society of Women Artists when she submitted her work to the prestigious Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours, and was duly accepted as a member in 2004.
Recent awards include: The Herring Award for best figurative; The Elizabeth Scott-Moore Award; The Debra Manifold Award; The Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer Award; The Andrew Hillier Award for Creativity; and two Daler-Rowney Awards.

CHRISTINE TAHERIAN SWA

Christine’s work has been exhibited in galleries throughout the UK, including the acclaimed Mall Galleries, via the Society of Women's Artists (SWA) and the highly respected Royal Institute of Oil Painters.

Christine was born in Cardiff in 1960. During the late 70’s while studying Fine Art at Glasgow University, she met her husband-to-be and subsequently moved to Tehran. Here, while raising her family, she continued to study and paint, and immersed herself in the rich and ancient traditions of Persian art, culture and language.

On her return to the UK with her family, in the mid 90’s, she continued working and exhibiting through different art groups in London and the Home Counties, including the exclusive Society of Women Artists (SWA).

Drawing on her many and eclectic influences, Christine has evolved her own impressionistic style, employing Oils, Acrylics and Mixed Media. Her strong sense of colour, layered texture and abstract pattern inform and embellish her highly sought after urban landscapes.

Her work sets out to capture the magic of specific places and moments in life, inviting the viewer to enter into the picture and to experience it by drawing on their own memories and responses. Christine thus inspires us to recall our own specific moments more vividly.