Optima Magazine

Section of a print © Joy Thomson

Two local artists, Joy Thomson and Kathy Foster, have joined forces for this year’s Herts Open Studios – bringing new life to the display space within in the foyer of Watersmeet Theatre, Rickmansworth, with an exhibition that contrasts their individual colourful and innovative landscape paintings, and also has examples of printmaking, object paintings and life drawings.

Since meeting at Chorleywood Community Arts Centre fifteen years ago, both these artists have evolved highly personal styles and have attained professional awards in a variety of artistic fields. Kathy Foster graduated from Bucks Chilterns University in 2004 with a degree in Fine Art. Her inspiration comes from the minutiae of life, those familiar everyday objects and spaces that are often overlooked. She produces figurative and semi-abstract oil paintings based on individual objects… old shoes, books, chairs, fences and plastic bags, for example, aiming to convey the identity and transience of such ordinary items, and record the space that they occupy during their lifetime. The experimental and accidental play an important part in her painting and she declares herself ‘fascinated by the physicality of paint and its relationship with the image’.

This year Joy Thomson exhibited at Originals 09, the most prestigious open printmaking exhibition in the UK, where she was one of 200 artists selected from more than 1500 submissions from around the UK.

Joy’s work is very personal and is usually directly linked to a time and place. The Orkney Islands and the beautiful Lakeland Fells are her main inspiration, although she does not try to replicate what she sees… rather she expresses her own personal feelings and interpretation. By limiting detail in the paintings Joy hopes to stimulate the imagination of the viewer. The various printmaking techniques – and their combinations – provide endless new possibilities; Joy explains that they dictate the image. ‘It is the unexpected that is exciting…’.

The exhibition runs from 12 to 30 September during theatre opening times (9.30am-5pm Monday-Friday, Saturday 10am-12pm). However, at certain times you can meet Joy and Kathy and find out more about their work. See brochure or www.hvaf.org.uk for full details.