The Makers’ Art Collective are first artists back at Oxmarket

The exhibition runs from April 13-18.

Makers’ Art Collective exhibitors are: Dawn Thorne – surface textile artist and chairman; Paula Reason – stitched textile artist; Sian Highwood – mixed media textile artist; Samantha Dewar-English – jewellery and metal designer; Helen Twigg-Molesey – product designer; Lene Ryden – ceramics; Sharon Kearley – woven textile designer; Jennifa Chowdhury – surface pattern designer; Wallace Regelous – fine jewellery designer; Laura Adburgham – woven textile designer; Susan Blandford – constructed textile artist; Tracy Dryden-Jones – ceramics; and Hermione Thomspon – mixed media textile designer.

Guest exhibitors are: Beverly Ayling-Smith – artist; Kas Williams – textile artist; Caroline Burvill – artist; Harriet Walford – jeweller; Lucy Rhodes – woven textile artist; Jennifer Jones – woven textile designer; Christine Johnson – contemporary fine jeweller; Cara Wassenburg – sculptor; Erin Donahue – artist; Peipei Yu – artist; and Alice Howard-Graham – printed textile designer.

Chairman Dawn Thorne explains: “We are all alumni from Farnham University of the Creative Arts, but we live all over the south. Some artists are quite local to Chichester. The group was formed in 2017.

“In 2017-2019 members of The Makers’ Art Collective worked as individuals over the course of their MA studies.

“Nonetheless the collective experience provided a diverse and symbiotic viewpoint from of a group of makers and artists whose shared experience gave life to both individual and conjoined themes and areas of exploration.

“There was a connection made within the group that saw a study of matters both deeply personal and reflective of the wider human condition. Themes such as grief, loss, healing, placement in landscape and time, the erosion of time and memory sat conversely yet easily with makers exploring ideas that provided beacons of light, movement and playfulness.’