spot Asta!

text from May issue Seaford Scene

When it comes to the spirit of the seaside Seaford’s Coastal Collective has it – in artistic buckets and spades!

The group’s latest show Form & Figure at Seaford’s Crypt Gallery May 5 to May  9 focuses upon the landscape, colours, light, textures and fun of the south coast in paintings and pottery an affirmation of the town’s burgeoning and prolific community of artists. 

Passing through the exhibition that includes paintings, ceramics, lino prints and textiles is to step into a three dimensional representation of our town and surrounding area.

Regulars of The Crypt will be delighted to see the return of Sally-Mae Joseph whose impressionistic images of cliffs and beach huts and flora and fauna exude colour and energy. The calligrapher and lettering artist by trade draws upon her alphabetical skills for a range of vivid ceramics.

Sally-Mae’s enthusiasm for the coast is equalled by Kim Bentley, a textile designer with work in the Victoria and Albert Museum with a reputation stretching from London to New York and Seaford to Cornwall,  whose painted silk landscapes feature colourfully woven people and pets. Pieces depicting people admiring Seaford Head and another of folk dashing from sauna to sea.

“My work is place specific and inspired by people watching,” says Kim whose images often feature her Airedale Terrier Asta. “I try to capture the fun, the charm, the eccentricity of everyday life.” 

Michael Keehan has a novel twist on the conventional coastal theme while reflecting a fishing trade that has thrived in the area for centuries. Established as a head and shoulders portraitist of enigmatic men Michael has drifted to fish! Platters of shiny, crystallised mackerel with orange eyes destined to adorn many a kitchen and dining room wall!

“I’ve been in the antique business for 48 years and that must have had an influence,” says the artist whose works have been bought by stylists, designers and film set buyers.

“We are a group of artists who are creatively inspired by the sea and the environment,” says the Collective’s spokesperson and motivator Susie Silvester. Her own contributions comprise substantial pieces of pottery that appear to have been raised from a long lost maritime wreck. Glazing and oxides imbue the work with a sense of times past. A feeling fundamental to John Shuttle’s nautical pottery with its images of gulls sea and sun.

And anyone familiar with the drying huts at Hastings will be drawn to the black weatherboard buildings depicted in Graham Millett’s monochromatic block prints. 

Form and Fire uses the diversity of mixed media to throw a colourful and at times completely unique and celebratory net around this diverse seaside world of ours – in buckets and spades.  

Form & Figure, The Crypt Gallery, 23 Church Street, Seaford, BN25 1HD May 5 to May 9.