Burnham Art Trail 2024

Posted on 4th July 2024 by kathrynhockey

Welcome to the garden shed at venue 4 for Burnham Art Trail 2024!I was really fortunate to have a wonderful haven of a venue for Burnham Art Trail 2024: the shed in the Franklins’ lush back garden in Fernlea Road, venue number 4 on the map. Also really fortunate to be able to enjoy the lovely company of Andrew and Frances Franklin as well as Sue Jones, who I know through Burnham Art Club. Frances, Sue and I developed our works in progress at a very relaxed pace and Andrew took charge of showing visitors around our respective exhibition spaces and the garden.

The shed was a perfect match for my artwork which has a nature theme this year, including mixed media paintings of seeds, seedheads, flowers and bark. I displayed the larger paintings on this beautiful old work bench among the art materials I used to make them and the subject matter that inspired them.

All photos above courtesy of the Art Trail publicity team member Donata, @pastaandpurses on Instagram

Sticking to the garden theme, I also sold printed greetings cards sets of my Mayland Garden series of pen and wash paintings.

And sticking with the Burnham theme I sold printed greetings cards sets featuring my two series of Burnham-on-Crouch pen and wash paintings.

Click here to see a video of my artwork installed in the garden shed.

I made the smaller paintings into greetings cards and hung them like bunting from the beams using garden twine and little pegs.

Here I am, below, painting my poppy cards. Photo courtesy of the Art Trail publicity team member James @burnhamarttrail on Instagram.

… inspired by a tenacious little plant that fought its way up through the gaps in the paving slabs of the patio at home.

Click here to see these and my other Art Trail mixed media paintings in more detail.

And here’s a little video showing my may blossom mixed media, original artwork greetings cards.

I made a temporary chalk sign pointing down from the High Street to the musuem (below). I adapted the Art Trail logo and cut stencils of the larger letters for ease on site. Once the Trail was over the sign washed off really easily.

In total there were 43 artists showing diverse and beautiful work across 35 venues, with workshops throughout the week at various locations and Art on the Quay at weekends. I’m very grateful to be part of such a friendly and creative community.

Please contact me if you’d like to purchase any of my original artwork or sets of printed greetings cards featured in this post.

And don’t miss Burnham Art Trail 2025 – always the last week in June!

Burnham Art Club Exhibition 2023

Posted on 21st October 2023 by kathrynhockey

Very pleased to take my place amongst the startlingly impressive and varied output of the excellent Burnham Art Club members who always show their collective work at the end of August to coincide with Burnham week. Lovely to meet visitors and fellow artists and to make some sales and purchases!

“Looking Up” – Pen and Wash Portraits of Maldon High Street

Posted on 17th August 2023 by kathrynhockey

I was delighted to show my pen and wash portraits of beautiful Maldon High Street in the Maeldune Centre, at the top of Market Hill, Maldon, from 17th August to 2nd September 2023.

Here I am on the launch night, sitting in front of the half size fine art prints I had made of the original paintings. Click here to find out more about the prints and buy them.

The exhibition had a tremendously generous reception from Maeldune Centre visitors and volunteers alike. By far the star of the show was the black and white print I had made for the table tops in the centre of the gallery. People had great fun colouring it in and writing on it; the comments and shared memories of Maldon High Street were really touching. As the exhibition drew to a close the Maldon Society photographed it for their archive – I was truly honoured.

Maldon’s mayor, Andrew Lay, and young Blake hone their colouring skills at the launch party.

Maldon historian Stephen Nunn visited a couple of times and I was able to add some fascinating facts about the High Street to the interactive artwork as he dictated. Here he is with my dad, Ron, who was also very enthusiastic and generous with his High Street memories.

Click this link to see a video of the interactive artwork and learn some fun and fascinating facts!

The Maldon Society is in the process of adding photos of the interactive piece and digital versions of the original paintings to their archive. I am truly an honour.

Here’s what Stephen said about the exhibition along with some other reviews:

Pen and Wash Portraits of Maldon High Street

Posted on 17th August 2023 by kathrynhockey

I was born in Maldon (as was my dad), and I lived there until I was 18 so I feel a very strong bond with the place despite having lived away for 30 plus years.

I decided to paint some of Maldon’s most beautiful buildings.

While I was taking reference photos I got the urge to paint all the façades from the old police station in West Square down to the Rose & Crown on the corner of Butt Lane.

Part of the loveliness of buildings comes from their relationship to their neighbours; that’s something we could also say about ourselves.

That stretch of High Street was too long to fit onto one piece of paper so I divided it into eight sections and started making rough sketches. Then I challenged myself to finish all the paintings in a year and exhibit them at the Maeldune Heritage Centre, which is one of the buildings included in the series.

The exhibition is called “Looking Up” because it occured to me, while I was taking the reference photos, how rarely I take the time to stop, stand still for a while, look up and really appreciate my surroundings. Perhaps you’re the same?

And since I’ve painted these buildings I’ve notice that they’ve become more vibrant to me. I mean that when I walk or drive past them now, they seem brighter and more alive. It’s as if by getting to know all the little details of their faces I’ve made friends with them!

The exhibition ran from 17th August to the 5th September 2023. Many people dropped in to see the paintings and the low tech interactive element – they did some colouring in and shared their High Street memories on the large black and white print in the centre of the gallery.

Please contact me if you’d like to purchase or exhibit any of my original Maldon High Street paintings.

Fine Art Prints

I’ve had some beautiful fine art prints made which capture the essence of the original paintings at half their size. Please click here to contact me if you’d like to buy prints.

The ink is lightfast, so it won’t deteriorate over time and the museum quality paper is Hahnemuhle William Turner 310gsm, which has a texture and weight similar to the watercolour paper on which I painted the originals.

Exhibition

Read about my summer exhibition at the Maeldune Heritage Centre here.

Steam Tug Brent Exhibition 2023

Posted on 24th July 2023 by kathrynhockey

I was delighted to submit a painting for the annual exhibition of locally made artworks celebrating the Steam Tug Brent which ran for a week in July 2023 in the Octagon at St Mary’s church.

In preparation I paddled out with my kayak buddy to get a photo from an interesting angle. I wanted to show The Brent with St Mary’s Church and its Octagon in the background because that’s where the exhibition would be held.

I used that photograph as reference while I made my pen and wash painting (above).

There was a generous and varied selection of beautiful works shown in the exhibition, the youngest contributor being under 4 years old and the oldest having just celebrated their 93rd birthday.

Photographs of the exhibition space

Brent – Group Exhibition

Posted on 17th September 2021 by kathrynhockey

Back at the end of the 1970s, aged 10-11, I had a brilliant teacher for my last year of primary school; Janet Hall. She was a gentle, creative person with flowing hair, flowing skirts and clogs, and she lived on this boat. The Steam Tug Brent.

I’ve had the good fortune to have had enjoyed some excellent travel adventures but one of the best was during that last year of primary school. Mrs Hall arranged for our class to travel by boat (not the Brent!) from Maldon to Saint Osyth’s Priory. I still remember that exhilarating feeling of freedom as we skimmed across the water that dark grey morning with a hair whipping wind. Below – my school photo from around that time.

I got back in touch with Janet having returned to Essex after many years away. As luck would have it she was on the deck of the Brent as I walked on Maldon’s prom one day. Once Covid restrictions eased we met for a coffee and caught up on the intervening years.

Janet told me the story of the Brent’s rescue from the salvage yard in 1971, the years when she became the Hall family home through to the Steam Tug Brent Trust being set up in 2010 as a means of raising money and a voluntary workforce to conserve and restore this lovely old boat.

The Brent really is a labour of love and I highly recommend signing up for the supporters’ newsletter where you can see many beautiful photos and read the full story.

The Brent has achieved iconic status after 50 years in Maldon. To celebrate, a group exhibition of Brent related artworks was staged at St Mary’s Church Octagon in July 2021. The range, number and quality of pieces was really impressive; models, paintings on metal and board, watercolours, textile pieces, primary school submissions. Really lovely.

I was delighted to be invited to contribute, I made the pen and wash sketch below and helped to hang some of the pictures in the exhibition space.

Circumstances, Covid and otherwise, have so far conspired to prevent me from getting on board on one of Brent’s open days. I’d love to have a really good look around, and of course it would be marvelous to see her fully restored and sailing under steam power again one day.

Illustration Exhibition at the Presentation of the Play ‘Té Verde’

Posted on 20th January 2018 by kathrynhockey

On a rainy January afternoon my friend Marcel Snyders presented his play ‘Té Verde‘ (Green Tea in English) to an enthusiastic audience in the castle headquarters of Arte Vejer.

I designed the front cover for Té Verde back in October 2017 (you can read about the process here) so Marcel invited me to exhibit some of my art work during the event.

That’s Marcel (below) being interviewed by Paco Ariza Varo from Radio Vejer before Marcel interviewed me….

I decided to keep the exhibition small and simple so I showed a selection of my sketchbooks with my painting materials (to demonstrate the process of illustration) alongside the finished illustrations for:

CDs – Jauja and Somos Más by Mr Groovy and the Blue Heads, La Musa Difusa by Merche Corisco, Lukumi by Trio Lukumi
books – The Black Dawg by Louis McIntosh and me, The Three Witches by Jackie Cornwall
Annie B’s Spanish Kitchen Christmas cards from 2015 and 2017.

I also displayed some of my fabric designs (my current favourite form of illustration!) and the dresses I made from them, as well as a selection of postcards and a computer slideshow of other artworks.

The presentation was highly entertaining, Marcel served green tea (té verde) and cakes as people arrived, two actresses from Marcel’s theatre group read the first act of the play, the flamenco musician Abraham Sevilla Serrano improvised a song dedictated to Marcel and the play (right)…

…then Marcel broke out the cava and presented me with my copy of the book

The Spanish version of the play Té Verde is now available to buy on the publisher’s website.

It’s a highly entertaining read…Good luck Marcel!

La Pinturera – Group Exhibition

Posted on 12th December 2016 by kathrynhockey

Yolanda, the delightful proprietor of Vejer’s ‘La Pinturera‘ generously invited me and three other local artists to set up a group exhibition in her hair and beauty salon since she had a great deal of white wall space and the opportunities for sales would be high in the run up to Christmas.

Pinturera means swanky, so it’s quite apt!

We started in the window (left) with a mixture of all the participating artists’ work (below)….

…then each selected a space inside the salon to show our work individually:

My wall – above, me in the mirror

Chio adds the finishing touches to her wall of Vejer themed drawings.

Bryony’s ceramics in the foreground as she studies Laura’s paintings in the background.

Laura designed the poster, left and we set a date for the official opening…

Laura shows one of her beautiful sketchbooks, left…

…and below, Chio’s jewelry and sketches and my postcards…

I’m feeling very grateful to Yolanda for this wonderful opportunity to exhibit in such a lovely space alongside Chio, Laura and Bryony whose work I truly admire; they’re a great group of people.

Vejer Inspira

Posted on 25th July 2016 by kathrynhockey

They say good things come in small packages and the tiny exhibition space ‘Vejer Inspira‘ is certainly a case in point…

The gallery first opened to the public on Friday 1st July and has the following opening times:

Tuesday to Sunday 11am -1pm and 7pm – 9pm

Vejer Inspira on opening night (above)

My wall (above)…decked out with my signature stenciled cockerels, some collages, a limited edition print of my cow skull drawing, original pen and watercolour drawings of Vejer and various prints of illustrations including the Chicken Buses, Gas Bottle, Discord Nancy and the CD cover for the album Jauja by Mr Groovy and the Blue Heads.

Vejer Inspira was conceived and set up by Sabine Friedrich (left), an accomplished painter from Germany, who generously invited me and three other Vejer based artists to share the walls and shelves with her.

The other artists who are exhibiting in the Vejer Inspira space are:

Blanca Gortari – who paints gorgeously colourful swirls and dots on pretty much anything that stays still long enough (right)….I am the proud owner of a Renata keyring and have a pair of reading glasses on my wish list…

Gustavo Paradiso – originally from Argentina, who designs fabulous contemporary jewelry (left)

and

Debra Berger – whose fairy tale ceramic concoctions are displayed on a small scale here but feature as grand installations in various locations including her delightfully restored Vejer town house.

‘El Carnaval’ Group Exhibition

Posted on 13th February 2016 by kathrynhockey

Cádiz Carnaval is one of the best know carnivals in Spain. For two weeks every February the whole city is crazily vibrant with elaborately costumed groups, the most famous of which are the chirigotas, singing satirical and humurous songs they have taken all year to prepare.

Vejer Carnaval is a scaled down version and to celebrate it Arte Vejer are hosting a ‘Carnaval’ themed group art exhibition which opens today in their castle headquarters.

The exhibition space will be open on Saturdays and Sundays 12-2pm from 13th to 28th February 2016.

Click here to see photos of the event.

Carnaval is traditionally an opportunity to indulge in alcohol fueled mass revelry before the more austere Easter celebrations begin.

Masks and cross-dressing are typical so I went with a drag-queen inspired cartoon style character who is wearing a ‘Nuestra Señora‘ virgin inspired headdress (right).

I decided to crack open my new pastel set and experiment with bright colours and blending techniques. I used charcoal for the background and crumbled pastel dust over it to achieve a glittery effect.

All in all quite a messy, dusty process, but fun nevertheless.

Kathryn Hockey

Artist Illustrator

Tag Archives: exhibition

Burnham Art Club Exhibition 2023

Pen and Wash Portraits of Maldon High Street

Please contact me if you’d like to purchase or exhibit any of my original Maldon High Street paintings.

Fine Art Prints

Exhibition

Illustration Exhibition at the Presentation of the Play ‘Té Verde’

Vejer Inspira

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Please contact me if you’d like to purchase or exhibit any of my original Maldon High Street paintings.

Fine Art Prints

Exhibition

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Photographs of the exhibition space

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