Exhibitions

Jane Sheppard describes her large ceramics as 3D drawings that harness areas of space.

Her work takes inspiration from the neolithic landscape and prehistoric artefacts, patterns and symbols from across the globe. Working with smoke and natural pigments she aims to create pieces that are a meeting point of time and cultures.

All the work in ‘MEMBRANE’ is finely made by the ancient method of coiling clay.  The process is laborious, slow and exacting.  It has been her practice for 35 years, becoming a working philosophy.

Jane has held solo exhibitions in London, Bath and Salisbury and delivers masterclasses in coiling throughout the country. She led the ceramics department at Bath College for 15 years and now works from her studio at Black Swan Arts, Frome. ‘MEMBRANE’ explores the world of the seen and unseen. It celebrates her larger vessels and sculptures including ‘Grace Vessel’ recently installed in the church of St Michael and All Angels, Gwernesney and includes new work inspired by her residency in Orkney.

Hilary Kay
Hilary is a Textile Artist living in Frome. She has exhibited and sold her work in galleries across the country for many years. Her work takes inspiration from many sources, including the natural world. Hilary uses many techniques, including felt making, machine embroidery, the use of water-soluble fabric, block printing and collage.

Lizbeth Spurgeon
Lizbeth produces images from memory of places and imagination. These give a mind’s eye view of the natural world around us. They are often landscapes worked with the movement of ever changing skies. Some may be seen as familiar places, and the viewer will often give their own interpretation of the paintings. Paintings are produced on canvas or wood block, and recycled canvas. All are created using oil paints and some have other mediums.

Suzanne Woodward
Suzanne works with water based mixed media on recycled paper to explore a variety of narratives based on memory and experience.

Liv O’Hanlon
Liv O’Hanlon generally sculpts figures in clay with an emphasis on exploring human relationships, and has an occasional tendency to break into abstraction.

Viv Meadows
Viv works with collage and paint to produce woks with layers, texture and colour. She is committed to drawing as foundational to what all her work.
She came to art in what she calls as her ‘middle ages’ with the opportunity of redundancy to undertake a Fine Art degree.
All of life contributes to the image, Viv looks for what is going on under the surface, moving from evocative impressions to figurative images using line, monotone, searing colour, humour and irony.

Viv’s work is informed by a female perspective and the ways in which other artists incorporate their experience by invoking political and social outcomes she is particularly influenced by a range of artists including Paula Rego, Suzanne Lacey and Ida Appelbroog.
in summer 2023 she curated an exhibition responding to Hospitality Peace and Reconciliation for Ammerdown’s retreat centre’s 50th anniversary.

Sarah Truscott.
Sarah weaves hand-woven rugs, scarves and wall-hangings. She draws on her continual fascination with colour. How it interacts when woven and how it’s applied. She loves close graduation to give a feeling of movement and stillness. Each handwoven item is woven using only natural materials.

Liza Saunders.
Liza’s silkscreen prints draw on a range of inspirations, blending the disciplined simplicity and composition of the classical Japanese printers who first mastered the medium, with the expressive potency of pure colour found in works by Matisse and followers of the early 20th Century French Fauvist movement.
She says ‘”In my artwork, I feel like I’m trying to strip away the unwanted layers of messiness and disorder that mask the underlying beauty of my subjects. I’m not interested in simply making a representational facsimile of, say, a bird or a leaf. My job is to reveal and to share its inner joyfulness in the purest way possible”

Nicola Clark
Nicola’s large, colourful, acrylic pictures are inspired by themes from the mythology of various spiritual traditions. They have a strong narrative and illustrative element, which hopes to provoke thought and wonder as much as aesthetic appreciation.
She also works in paper collage, creating images that seem to be illustrations for a mysterious book or tale that was never written . . .

Black Swan Arts is thrilled to present FIELD by artist Hamish Young—a unique, participatory art installation designed for the vibrant community of Frome.

Crafted from 28,000 hand-cast plaster shells, each individually moulded from shells gathered along the stunning southwest coastline, FIELD is a tribute to Frome’s residents. Every shell symbolises one of the 28,000 individuals who call this beautiful town their home.

Housed in The Long Gallery, right in the heart of Frome, this installation invites everyone to come together and engage with this transformative artwork. Whether you’re a proud local or a curious visitor exploring Frome, there’s a shell waiting just for you. Choose one to take with you—to a new place, a fresh home—where it will continue its journey under your care.

Over time, as visitors and members of the community take these shells away, the installation will organically evolve and disperse—a poetic reflection of connection, movement, and shared experience.

Don’t miss this extraordinary opportunity to be part of FIELD. Join us at Black Swan Arts and help create something truly meaningful and memorable.

Biography:

Hamish Young’s autoethnographic work is concerned with formalising ‘in between’ spaces drawing on feelings associated with loss and abandonment from his childhood experiences. He has cultivated a schism in his art practice that manifests in crossing the boundary of sculpture and drawing, objects being removed from one place and placed in another and subject matter related to transitional physical environments. Through allusions his work triggers metaphors and personal associations, which allow the viewer to contemplate ambivalence.

Young studied Sculpture at the Royal College of Art (1996-1998) and co-authored Fine Art Metal Casting: An Illustrated Guide to Mould Making and Lost Wax Processes (2003). He became a Royal West of England Academician in 2021 and a member of the Royal Society of Sculptors in 2022. His work is held in the Victoria & Albert Museum collection as well as private collections in the UK and Switzerland. Young’s work has been exhibited at Royal West of England Academy, Royal Academy of Arts, Saatchi Gallery and the Victoria and Albert Museum. His work is regularly selected in prize exhibitions including the Wales Contemporary, Wells Art Contemporary, New Light Prize, ING Discerning Eye and Trinity Wharf Drawing Prize. He was the winner of the Visual Arts Open in 2019, awarded first prize for three-dimensional work at Wales Contemporary in 2022, the Bath Society of Artists Drawing Prize in 2023 and longlisted for the Aesthetica Art Prize in 2024.