Exhibition: The Art of Plants

Saturday 24th April 2010 – Monday 7th June 2010

Otterton Mill Gallery's current exhibition, "The Art of Plants", showcases five West Country artists who depict and are inspired by plant-life in its various forms. To tie in with the changing of the seasons, the selection of work celebrates the forms and colours of nature as it comes alive after one of the harshest winters in 50 years. The exhibition's theme continues a successful series at the Mill, inspired by the natural world and environment in and around the South West.

East-Devon based print-maker Alison Everall uses monoprint techniques to create images of seed heads and leaves. Her love of printmaking began while studying illustration for her BA (Hons) at Swindon College in the early 90's. Since then, she has continued to explore and experiment with a variety of print processes, in particular etching, monoprint and collograph. Her interests as a keen gardener and nature lover have influenced her recent printmaking, as she uses found objects such as seed heads and leaves to create beautiful and delicate images, all unique and reminiscent of old sepia photographs or minutely detailed engravings.

Fine art photographer Kimberly Rainford has long been a popular exhibitor at the Mill. Her photographic canvases created from digital images are characterised by vibrant, fresh colours, which perfectly complement modern interiors. Kimberly's love of photography began as a young child, when she was given her first camera, which she describes as "a bright, shiny red one with a pop-up flash". Her interest in the arts flourished throughout her teens and led to a degree in Contemporary Craft, followed by an early career with the high-street chain habitat. Following a sell-out exhibition of her work in one of habitat's stores, Kimberly set up her own photographic business in 2004, and hasn't looked back. For this exhibition, she is exhibiting a range of canvases, both large and small, featuring close-up images of brightly coloured flowers, as well as beach grasses in the Exmouth dunes.

Bristol-based artist Janine Partington is an emerging designer-maker, who combines the traditional craft of enamelling with clean, fresh, contemporary designs. Her enamel panels and jewellery are inspired by trees, flowers, leaves and seed heads, and take their shape and form through the creation of intricate, hand-cut stencils. Enamel powder is sifted over the stencils onto the bare copper, then fired. As the metal cools, the true colours of the enamel emerge, although it takes multiple short firings to create a finished piece of work. This sensitive relationship between the copper and enamel is at the heart of Janine's work. The enamel's sheen and its interplay with light add an additional dimension to the finished 2D picture, giving it a wonderfully tactile quality.

Susan Sloan is a collage artist who is showing part of a body of work made in response to the Victorian Borough Gardens in Dorchester, her home town. Plant hunters travelled to the far reaches of the world and brought back specimen trees and shrubs to the Gardens, including the Magnolia, whose delicate, dried leaves inspired Susan to create a series of collage pictures. The leaves have a lace-like, skeletal quality, which Susan also recreates in her textile work, which she exhibits in her Dorchester studio.

The fifth artist showcased in the Mill's exhibition is ceramicist Gillian Acreman, who is showing a range of stoneware bowls and vases inspired by the wild plants and natural colours of the countryside surrounding her Somerset pottery studio. The outside of each vessel is impressed with seed heads, leaves or grasses from the woodland and meadow that merge into Gillian's wilderness garden. Inside, the pots are feathered and streaked with blue, grey-green and lilac hues. Each pot is unique, and has a depth and variety of colour that comes from many firings and the overlaying of wood-ash glazes with washes of cobalt, chromium and iron oxides. Gillian says that her pots reflect the wild landscape of the West Country, and attempt to catch a little earth, water and sky in their finish.

We are delighted once again to host such a beautiful range of work from a group of outstanding local artists. The work captures different aspects of the natural world in all its glory, and, as ever, reflects the wealth of creative talent that is found within the South West and which we are proud to champion at the Mill.

The exhibition runs daily to Monday 7th June. Entry is free.

For more information, call the Gallery on 01395 568008.