As Time Goes By
Celebrating 5 years of the Star Brewery Gallery
Saturday 6th - Sunday 21st September
Open
Wednesday-Friday 11am-4pm | Saturday-Sunday 10.30-4.30 | Closed Monday & Tuesday
Paul Newland
The ideal watercolour, for me anyway, is completed in one sitting ( more often standing in fact), and on the spot. However, the Ideal stays just that, most of the time - not a thing of this world. There are revisitings, quite often, and even work in the studio from drawings or other colour studies. When living in London I often worked along the river - I liked the way it could give me distance, put space between me and the things I was looking at, with only the flowing, sometimes turbulent, water to separate us. Maybe Old Thames Romance had a part to play in these choices. Many such works were made but few remain with me: recently, however, I unearthed a couple of these studies and have revisited them, i.e. continued to work on them. It was partly for the pleasure of reviving a vision of yesteryear, partly to conform with the spirit (or title) of this exhibition. The move from London to here - although the distance is so small - created almost a chasm between the before and the after.
The recent watercolours are much more local and I haven’t, truth to tell, made many of them. They are usually either informative studies for larger oil paintings, or they fill regrettable gaps in the practice - subject matter I haven’t had time to address with oil paints and panels and easels and what have you.
Susie Monnington
Evocative abstract paintings inspired by Outer Hebridean beach wanderings.
I never know what my paintings will look like. They emerge from an intense and focused practice, balanced with trying to be open to surprises, alert and ultimately inviting in a painterly playfulness: A found bottle top from the beach used to make marks suggesting bubbles in the sand. Seaweed crushed into sand to build texture.
Seaweed washed up on sand, deposited in lines resembling manuscript staves with dried kelp spore sacs, scattered like crotchets and quavers, pushed and pulled backwards and forwards with the tide’s ebb and flow. Shape-shifting sands blown across the shore by relentless winds. A never-ending dance along the shore.
Time marked out on rocks. Sometimes sanded and polished shiny smooth, sometimes geometrically precise with delicate traceries and occasional angry abstract gashes, scratched and gouged out like war wounds. A reminder of the sea’s power.
Mark Munroe-Preston
Mark, originally from Yorkshire, studied photography at Wolverhampton Polytechnic before moving to London, where he worked as a still life photographer. His interest shifted to digital illustration and CGI, leading him to become a children’s illustrator. In 2001, Mark relocated to Sussex, where he rekindled his passion for landscape photography, particularly in Ashdown Forest and the South Downs National Park. By 2017, he began transforming these photographs into artwork for his first exhibition. After going full-time as an artist in 2018, he exhibited widely in the UK and beyond.
His work blends photography, painting, and collage to create atmospheric pieces inspired by nature. Focusing on trees, Mark captures their complexity and importance to ecosystems. His art often incorporates themes of windswept landscapes and interconnected natural systems. Each piece is titled with GPS coordinates to encourage viewers to visit and experience the locations firsthand, with works presented as limited edition prints on brushed aluminium.
Joanna Farrow
I am a Sussex artist, focusing primarily on landscapes and trees. I’m inspired by my surroundings such as the Ashdown Forest and my rural locality. Every time I’m out, something different catches my eye – it might be colour and structure, or the mood of a place which changes seasonally, as well as through the day. I walk and draw, or make quick paintings of whatever inspires me. I then develop the work in my studio, working from my drawings, back up photographs and sometimes memory. I am increasing embracing the elements and committing to working ‘plein air’ as the resulting work, whether painting or drawing, has an energy and spontaneity that can be difficult to recreate in the studio. I work mainly with oils, though I am increasingly incorporating different materials and processes. My work sells through art fairs, galleries and design companies, both here and abroad.
Martin Gayford
Martin’s paintings deal with perceptions of scale and recognition. Martin creates a space with elements that suggest recognisable objects - parts of buildings, pipes, suitcases, a face - that are left open to interpretation. A sense of space and scale is simultaneously familiar and hard to pin down. Martin uses oil paint mixed to varying consistencies, with an expressive freedom that offers a direct counterpart to his intricately worked graphite drawings. He describes the process of painting as a search for meaning; one that evolves over time as the work references itself as well as a growing list - now covering over 30 years - of collected images.
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Martin’s paintings deal with perceptions of scale and recognition. Martin creates a space with elements that suggest recognisable objects - parts of buildings, pipes, suitcases, a face - that are left open to interpretation. A sense of space and scale is simultaneously familiar and hard to pin down. Martin uses oil paint mixed to varying consistencies, with an expressive freedom that offers a direct counterpart to his intricately worked graphite drawings. He describes the process of painting as a search for meaning; one that evolves over time as the work references itself as well as a growing list - now covering over 30 years - of collected images. ​
Rosie Good
Rosie lives and works in Lewes. She is a graduate of the Royal Academy Schools and has won several awards. She draws imagery from the landscape, both urban and rural and is interested in the way things change over time, including erosion and dereliction. In the last couple of years, she has spent time looking at well-known abandoned structures, including Shoreham cement works, the North Street quarter, Horsebridge Mill and Black Rock Gas works. These old industrial landmarks hold stories from the past and are monuments to a different time and ideas of change. She is also a member of Salt Edge Arts, an art group interested in depicting the changing coastline and area surrounding Cuckmere, Sussex.
Sarah Ruthven
Sarah Ruthven abstracts the landscape with colour. She is drawn to wild places like the west coast of Cornwall, the Sussex coast line and the undulating and expansive South Downs.. These landscapes inspire Sarah’s ceramic and painting practice, which feed into each other. Oil paints, palettes, slips and glazes all retain the flowing and malleable landscape she experiences.
As a ‘plein air’ oil painter Sarah will visit the same spots repeatedly connecting and tuning into the landscape. When back in the studio Sarah will give the paintings time to breathe and make decisions whether to work on the paintings further.
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Sarah's paintings are lyrical, hazy, luminous and are sensitive invitations into land and light. Sarah says,' I feel like there is this human yearning to reconnect and remember'.
Sarah’s artistic career has taken her from a BA Fine Art at Kingston University to a Marsters with Distinction in European Fine Art at Winchester School of Art and Barcelona. More recently Sarah completed Professional Landscape course at Newlyn School of Art.
Dan Johnson
Since graduating from Liverpool John Moore’s University in 1991, Dan has been a professional artist in fields as diverse as stencil graffiti (exhibiting alongside Banksy), stage design, club decor, collage, fine art painting, and printmaking.
“It was only at the tender age of 50 that I discovered what I should have been doing all along - sculpture.”
The adaptation of man-made, post-consumer waste into careful representations of nature has poetry that seems apt for our times.
A lifelong love of nature, foraging, and structure are combined perfectly in the finding and repurposing of metal objects into his intricate creatures. It is, he says, a three-dimensional extension of the techniques and juxtapositions that typify the two-dimensional work he created for many years as a painter and especially a collagist.
Heather McAteer
Heather McAteer (b. Belfast, 1968) creates graphite works on paper which portray unquiet landscapes suffused with a profound sense of melancholic loss and absence. Her practice, informed by her upbringing during the Northern Ireland ‘Troubles’ and relocation to England in her twenties, explores themes of memory, history and identity.
Heather studied Fine Art at the University of Ulster (BA) and University of Reading (MFA) and has had her work selected for a wide range of exhibitions nationally. These include, most recently, ’A Room of One’s Own’ at Irving Gallery, Oxford (2024), ‘RBSA Drawing Prize’ at RBSA Gallery, Birmingham (2025 & 2023), ‘SFSA Annual Exhibition’ at The Mall Galleries, London (2025) ‘Paper Works’ at RWA, Bristol (2025) and ‘Summer Exhibition’ at The Gallery at Green and Stone, London (2025). The first book of her work, ‘Forests of Dreamland’, was published in 2024. She lives and works in Reading, Berkshire.
Marc Gooderham
I find an attractive melancholy in street corners and buildings that exist within the urban landscape. Where we may pass by without a second glance, I am drawn to the unique architecture of the city, capturing the singular beauty found in buildings from another time as modern life continues to evolve around them. I try to create scenes that hold an almost cinematic quality. Buildings take centre stage, offering a glimpse into empty rooms through curtain-less windows, evoking a sense of loneliness that is inherent in any large city. But the stillness also invites contemplation, of the lives once lived here and the new lives that continue to do so.
Preliminary sketches are made on location. These drawings are then worked into larger paintings on canvas, wood panels and paper. My paintings were featured in a recent Sky Arts edition of Inside Art. The episode profiled the work of the East London Group.
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I am a member of The Society of Graphic Fine Art - founded in 1919, which is recognised as the only foundation in the UK dedicated to drawing.
Lynn Gayford
Lynn grew up in Cambridge and studied Fine Art at Winchester School of Art and the Facultad de Belles Artes in Barcelona. She has an MA in Museum and Art Gallery Education and an MSc in Science Communication. Her career has included working at the Lisson Gallery, Chisenhale Gallery and on site specific installations in London and Madrid. Lynn currently works at the National Gallery carrying out audience research and teaches at The Royal Academy of Arts. Her work has been shown in Winchester, London, Breda, Netherlands and Lewes.
For her new paintings, Lynn uses photographs of reflections in shop windows as a starting point. Contrasting floral patterns with industrial scaffolding, she creates a mood that is evocative and poignant. As street scenes, the paintings reference an idea of the past as much as they do the present - the floral patterns perhaps acting as a curtain to another era. As with her colourfield paintings, there is a stillness and focus in Lynn’s work, which echoes her approach to painting.
Claire Hoskin
Claire Hoskin’s work is based on objects from the Pitt Rivers Museum which houses the University of Oxford’s anthropological collection.
The founder of the museum was interested in what he called “The evolution of design”, and the collection consists of “Common objects” concerned with utility and practicality.
Using photography, drawing and collage as a process of abstraction, the original artefacts are “evolved” into small scale mixed media sculptural pieces.
They are made using natural and repurposed materials to reflect the nature of the objects that inspired them, and the resourcefulness of their makers.
These makers are largely unknown, or unnamed, so the pieces are titled by the museum’s accession number to acknowledge their skill and ingenuity.
David C Nix
A photographer, painter and printmaker David is fascinated by the narrative possibilities of object and place, histories lived or imagined, finding equal inspiration in a monumental landscape or the dusty corner of an abandoned room.
An experienced practitioner, after studying Fine Art at university he became assistant to an interior designer, then worked as a photographer and model maker for archaeological exhibitions. That led to a 35 year teaching career in further education, after which David decided to establish his own studio and darkroom in Lewes. Here, he works to extend his own practice and share his knowledge with others through 1-to-1 or small group tuition.
Specialising in the use of large format vintage cameras and a range of techniques from the early years of photography, ‘Alternative’ photography is at the core of his practice – the images in the current show at the Star Brewery Gallery include recent ‘orotone’ prints, using both silver and gold in exploring a photographic technique from the latter years of the 19th century.
Hayley Brown
​Artist and tutor Hayley Brown has a BA and MA in Education. She has exhibited in Kent and Sussex for over over 25 years. Having a long career in the Arts, including studying Indian Miniature Painting at The City Palace Jaipur, teaching at the Victoria and Albert Museum and writing various press articles on ancient history. She has a long career in curating solo and group shows. Private tuition in London, Lewes and Uckfield including venues such as Paddock Art Studios, Private groups at home, and at Charleston. Currently mainly working in oils Hayley has been inspired by historical architecture, atmospheric interiors and contemplative portraiture after her many visits to National Trusts and Charleston Farm House. Hayley still tutors privately and is a member of Buxted Art Group. Recent commissions include Atmospheric Portraits in oil, Indian Architectural scapes, botanical paintings in egg tempera and also painted decorative furniture.
John Ball
The coastal environment of the South Downs in Sussex and the uniqueness of the Undercliff, a nature reserve in West Dorset provides wonderful subject matter related to its landscapes and how it changes over time through land management regarding the Downs and naturally when left alone in the reserve.
Painting mostly in oil but also watercolour, compositions revolve around the link between people, wildlife and the natural environment, an ever present triadic interaction that evolves as time goes by.
Nichola Campbell
Nichola Campbell works from her home studio in Newick, near Lewes. Her charming Indian ink framescapes are a series of small, collectable works which have an added 3D quality as their chunky painted frames draw you inward towards distant horizons or meandering paths inspired by the Sussex landscape and coastline in sparkling colours.
Peter Kettle
“YOU’RE THE WORLD’S FIRST FICTIONAL REALIST” said Clive James. He was talking to Peter Kettle after deciding to buy three of his paintings at his Covent Garden solo show. Kettle has exhibited in numerous one man and group shows, mostly in London. Sir Peter Blake selected him for The Discerning Eye at The Mall, London. He has frequently shown at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, and won an Arts Council prize awarded by Sir Kenneth Clark. In the Paris Salon he was awarded a Silver Medal. Much of his work is based on the book as a subject, or suggested by a line of prose or poetry. Private collectors include Alan Bennett, John Banville, Tom Stoppard, Clive James, Lord Young, Nick Hytner, Nicholas Farrell, Maggie Smith, Kevin McNally, Philip Pullman, Julian Fane, Herbie Brennan. Commissions have included Lloyds Bank, CSS Promotions, Penguin Books, Sun Life, Southern Comfort, and numerous others.
Liz Temperley
I started my Artist Residency in Motherhood in 2022, when my first baby was 9 months old. At the same time, and after spending 13 years as an illustrator using watercolours, I started painting using acrylics and oils. The enquiry into both roles as Mother and as Artist entangled, emulating each others desire to move from the heart. To be grounded, speak with authenticity and to observe a new identity emerging. Using new mediums to explore my narrative on the canvas; an act of visual representation confronting both my external and inner worlds.
In the heady moments I’ve reached for memories; the love and lore bound to the local landscape. In the numb moments I’ve used the palette to tell me how I feel, looking to my garden and the seasons to reflect my experience; pursuing my self-perception. Then through another pregnancy exploring the dreamscape as I journey through the sleeplessness; the liminal space between Mother and the everyday. In an effort to bind myself to something tangible, what I knew, who I was, who I am now.
Yvonne Coughlan
Yvonne Coughlan is an artist who lives and works in London. She studied sculpture at Chelsea College of Art .
Her studio practice spans painting, constructing, mono-printing and collage and drawing . The process is physical - involving painting, sanding, gouging and peeling and is driven by a search for for tension through colour and texture. She draws inspiration from travel, her immediate surroundings, poetry and music, exploring the dream-like and unresolved aspects of life. Her work seeks emotional resonance through material and colour relationships.
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Over time, my work has evolved from sculpture to a more painterly, two-dimensional approach. I construct rather than paint in the traditional sense, layering and stripping back materials to create a visual dialogue. Increasingly drawn to the qualities of paint, I finds the process deeply tied to emotion and memory, often revealing itself in unexpected ways.