The artists and creative businesses at Haarlem Artspace





GEOFF DIEGO LITHERLAND


Geoff's work explores the tension between the natural world and its grasping appropriation by human influence. It draws from traditional genres of painting together with the rusty surrealism of science fiction and the fantasia of abstraction to create a parallel world that seeks to not only question our perception of and relationship to nature, but paintings’ historical and current role in that.


DERMOT PUNNETT


Dermot Punnett overlays abstract forms on to recognisable landscapes to turn them into places of obscurity and intrigue. Woodland undergrowth is superimposed with mysterious geometric diagrams as if to point out some inscrutable meaning (work pictured). He uses oil on canvas to precisely delineate mountainsides and treetops then resorts to what he calls “dragging techniques” to warp the viewer’s perspective. A mass of dots haunts the skyline like a flock of digitised starlings. A jungle is infiltrated by a framework of classical columns. The colours tend towards the aquatic: turquoise, deep blue, acidic green.
Robert Clarke


OLIVIA PUNNETT


"Livvy tackles some quite emotionally affecting subjects with a subtlety that is quite moving. There is an evocative atmosphere to the best work that is almost poetic in its visual lyricism. Most particularly Livvy has managed to avoid expressive cliché’s and arrive at images that are intriguingly suggestive and at times enigmatic."
Robert Clark, arts writer for the Guardian


OLIVIA PEAKE


With a personal fascination for building, material and form, Olivia explores the illusionistic qualities of light, surface and space, which both modern architecture and modernist abstract painting share. She is particularly intrigued in creating sensory environments of reflective surfaces and minimalist neo-futuristic design, which can both disorientate the viewer’s perspective as well as distort the boundaries between medium-specificity and spatial limitations.


CLAY SMITH


Clay Smith works with found slide film, ready-mades if you wish. He also makes his own slides using materials like blood, insects, film, and juxtaposes the two together to create a new all inventory in photography. Sometimes dark, ugly, a twisted take on our modern movements in culture.

'Expression of a spatial representation, multilayered view point of spaces that challenge the cultured attachments to the times we live in'.


ROSANNA SCRASE



Rosanna uses traditional methods and techniques, incorporating aspects of craft into the form of sculpture, installations, paintings and illustration.

Human senses and body, is a main concern, along with experimenting with sounds, smell and touch. Ideas of fantasy and the unknown in our world, are included, playing with viewer’s preconceptions, allowing exploration & immersion.



KATHERINE STARCZEWSKI



Katherine Starczewski’s work explores the materiality and the illusionary qualities of light in relation to form, space and film. Her work plays on the relation between the visible and invisible, and is concerned with the social and cultural significance of electric light. Her practice includes, photography, video and installation.



GAVIN REPTON


Gavin is a freelance film-maker based in Wirksworth. He specialises in creative film making, from music videos to documentaries.
He has experience filming and editing for news and TV broadcasts, sports, live broadcasts and corporate videos. His filming and editing has been used on Sky TV, CNN, Good Morning America, BBC big screens around the UK, DVDs in schools, and on Youtube. Clients Include… Derby University, Wirksworth Festival, Derbyshire County Council, The Labour Party, Monkee Genes, Joanna heheir, Chris Webb Photography, Canopy & Stars, Curiousa & Curiosa, Full Grown.


CONOR HURFORD


Growing up in the shadow of Stanton Moor home to The Nine Ladies stone circle and many prehistoric stone carvings, and beside a Lead recycling plant, Derbyshire's prehistoric past and industrial heritage continues to shape Conor's artistic future as he pushes: pattern, material and form through direct carving, casting and digital manipulations. Using a variety of materials he aims to blend: past, present and future through his material exploration in interesting and innovative ways.

Presently carving stone, Conor sculpts geological heritage in order to create artworks with longevity and legacy for future generations to come


NATALIE HALLOWS


Natalie’s current work look’s upon an industry that is considered to be invasive and somewhat an eye sore. Areas of landscape that has been defaced to give todays society the things they need and want. The invasive extraction of material leaves the landscape scarred of which it will never recover. Through painting and printmaking Natalie explores the working environments and the after effects.



ABBIE CANNING


Abbie Canning’s conceptual practice is driven by queries and investigations, resulting in an eclectic output. Encompassing installation, sculpture, photos, text, video, and reproductions, Abbie's work frequently presents inconclusive narratives or relational challenges about art, culture, the verbal and visual semiotics of contemporary society and the mundanity of the everyday. Often the work simultaneously draws attention to fault lines between communication and interpretation, between the object and it's given context, and the artist and their audience - upending the established stability of the viewers relationship to art. Abbie frequently uses titles that make self-conscious reference to the practices of art making or uses text to infuse the objects on display – emphasising the complex relationship between form and content that informs her work.



ANNA MAWBY


In a world where shouting louder is seen to be the only way to get heard, Anna Mawby’s humble sensitivity is refreshing.
Her work invites the viewer to quietly contemplate their own life, to evoke the thoughts that lie hidden below the surface of your consciousness, and provide a space for reflection.


BEV SHEPHARD



Bev is a freelance Finance Director who loves helping charities, social enterprises and SMEs grow their business, improve their strategy and planning, and work collaboratively to achieve extraordinary results. Bev brings specialist skills in finance, business development, change management, business planning, HR, fundraising, risk and governance together to help solve complex problems simply.