06/12/2017

EVAN are excited to announce their New Gallery and Artists Studios are now open

Come along and see some fantastic artwork and say hello to the artists. We are open daily from 10 till 4.
No.4 Corney Place, Penrith, CA11 7PX

03/11/2017

AN exhibition of paintings from the Artists in Penrith day and Eden Valley Artistic Network (EVAN) is due to open on Thursday evening.
At the end of September, as part of the first Artists in Penrith festival, a total of 36 artists spent a day creating an image of the town within a nine-hour time frame. Those works of art will now be going on public display at the new gallery and studios at 4, Corney Square, next to Penrith Town Hall.
EVAN founder Simon Whalley said: “This is an example of artists taking the lead in the local community and making things happen for themselves.”
There are 40 EVAN members in the scheme and Mr. Whalley praised landlord Eden Council for its support. He also thanked timber firm Richardson’s, which had been generous with flooring sponsorship. Once the gallery is open, there will be changing displays of local work and a total of seven Eden-based artists will have studios at the centre.
EVAN was set up to support the development of local artists; create pathways to progress; provide opportunities for local artists to show and market their work, connecting them with the local and tourist communities; create opportunities for networking and socialising; to provide a professional development scheme for local working artists; and to provide a mentoring scheme for artistic endeavour. The Artists in Penrith exhibition will run from Thursday to Saturday, 18th November.

15/09/2017

Myriad Studio creates faerie legends at Dalemain mansion
AS part of the C-Art festival, Myriad Studio joined the art collective Unstationary Artists to fill the barn at Dalemain mansion, near Ullswater, with art and creativity.
Usually, Myriad Studio runs creative sessions every second Tuesday of the month at Eden Arts’s Old Fire Station in Penrith.
It delivers a mixture of group and personal workshops, some led by professional artists which are skill-based and some based on playful collaboration and run by its group of volunteers. Past projects have included learning monoprinting techniques, knitting and crochet, playing with clay and conductive putty and making a large scale fire engine!
“Myriad is a chance to switch off and join a creative community to create things you didn’t know you could,” said artist Anna McKay.
This month, inspired by The Unseen, a project created by Eden Arts, the session invited people to make a simple faerie out of natural materials and create their legend.
The creative session was held at Dalemain mansion on Tuesday.
“Myriad was created to give people an opportunity to be creative without worrying if what they create is good enough. It is not about what you create at the end of the session, it is about enjoying being creative,” said Katarina Prior, creator of Myriad Studio.

14/02/2004

image of Eve as a temptress …
A PENRITH artist is using her talents to pour scorn on the traditional biblical image of Eve as a temptress who lured Adam into sin by eating from the Tree of Knowledge.
Sarah Hiscoke, aged 42, of Graham Street, believes Eve gets a raw deal from historical interpretations of her “illicit” liaison with the serpent and Adam in Genesis.
“Far from being a sinful temptress, Eve was an intelligent woman who knew she had to get out of the Garden of Eden to be able to reproduce and perpetuate the human race,” she said.
Sarah, a design and craft student at the Cumbria Campus, Newton Rigg, Penrith, specialises in heavily sexual imagery of ripe fruits and snakes as well as nude depictions of Eve herself.
“I’m a feminist so I want to portray Eve in as positive a light as possible. The Bible does not do a very good PR job for Eve, but this idea that she was a terrible person is just one interpretation that has gone around the world.
“Hopefully, my art tells another story that this woman was a wonderful creative force, the beginning of all human life on Earth,” she said.
Sarah, who works in pastels and stitched textiles, is also heavily influenced by Gaudi and has visited Barcelona to study his work.
Two of her pastel pictures are currently on display at the Upfront Galley, Hutton-in-the-Forest.
Before moving to Penrith, where she lives with her husband Deano, a furniture restorer, and their three children Ruth, aged 15, Jane, 13 and seven-year-old Joseph, Sarah was a London-based freelance textile designer, selling her work to different textile companies around the world.
Once she completes her City and Guilds Diploma in design and craft at the Cumbria Campus, Sarah hopes to develop a career in art and textiles.