Luba Arnold Larnie, Martyn Dymott, Laura Cooper

Luba -

I am a contemporary landscape artist.  My paintings emotionally explore and represent nature in all its states and behaviours, from gentle and clam to brutal and violent. In my artwork, nature comes to life and unleashes the full force of what it feels: at times it is distraught, at tomes delighted to be alive. I try to capture all of its emotions in a semi abstract form.  With acrylic and oil as my main media, I play with colours, light and forms. I take colours that can be seen in nature with the naked eye and I intensify them, push them to extremes. I use a palette knife to create texture and overlap numerous layers of paint to add depth. I paint from memory, sketches, photographs and, of course, on location.

Martyn - I exhibit widely across the county and when I am not helping to organise Cheltenham’s Art in the Park, I am painting plein air or working in my studio on a new range of digital paintings inspired by what I have seen or felt. This year I am showing some of my large digital abstract paintings which have been printed on to an aluminium dibond surface. This process is often favoured by professional art photographers and it results in a very high-quality print with excellent colour definition. The printed metal is finished with a UV protective surface and it is usually cradled in a contemporary wooden frame.  Digital painting means I am using the same tools as I would if I was painting on a real canvas; watercolours, oils, sprays, air brushes, rollers, pencils and inks. However, I am layering these techniques in a virtual world to explore effects that develop, then resolve into something that then connects with the viewer.  

Laura -
The exhibits shown here in - Senses of Art - are intended to be a mini-retrospective of my work made over the past thirty-five years.  They represent my evolving journey from a professional illustrator to a digital and later textiles artist in tandem with the advent of changing technologies and approach throughout art and design.  The thread that connects each piece is my love of colour and detail shaped by my graphic skills and desire to explore and combine compositional elements and media in a variety of ways.