Fen Ditton Gallery Fen Ditton Gallery

Before completing the Drawing Year in 2021, Otis Blease studied Drawing and Printmaking at Bristol’s University of the West of England, where he was awarded the Dumfries House residency upon graduation. Having grown up in rural Cornwall, the move to London to study at The Royal Drawing School had a considerable impact on his work and the city’s constant state of motion added an energy and spontaneity to his practice. Working with mixed media materials, often onto paper he explores feelings of excitement and anxiety in his work, interested in the way life can seem both thrilling and mundane simultaneously.

Otis’ recent work is an exploration of combining drawing, painting and printmaking, and works from life, making drawings and notes in his sketchbook, often of the people he sees on public transport. These sketches are developed into charcoal drawings and then onto larger paintings. His work relies on ‘accidents’ and disused sections of previous works come back into play, with a mixed on observational and imaginary image making.


This conversation with emerging artist Otis Blease was recorded as part of our currently exhibition, Voices in Drawing, which features the work of six recent graduates and alumni from The Royal Drawing School

The exhibition is open until Sunday 25th
February 2024 and can be viewed online at fendittongallery.com

Olly Williamson was born in 1994 and grew up in a village just
outside of Preston.  He completed the Drawing ear at the Royal Drawing School in 2023, after graduating from Manchester School of Art with a first-class honours in Fine Art in 2016.

Olly makes work about quiet situations in life, utilising
intense observation and experimental structures of composition. His images reflect the underlying rhythms of the people and the world he sees around him, hoping to make the everyday feel monumental.

This conversation was during our current Voices in Drawing exhibition. The exhibition showcases the work of six recent graduates and alumni from The Royal Drawing School and is open until Sunday 25th February 2024.

You can find out more and view the exhibition online at ⁠⁠fendittongallery.com⁠⁠

Originally from Cambridge, Felix Higham studied at Central St Martin’s before completing The Drawing Year in 2021. His artistic focus centres on the intricate study of people and the dynamics of life within the spaces we construct for our use. His observational drawings conducted in pubs and cafés provide material from which Felix constructs narrative works back in the studio. Through the placement of doorways and positioning of light sources, structural interiors become pivotal in dictating the viewer’s perspective within these spaces.



This conversation with emerging artist Felix Higham was during our current Voices in Drawing exhibition. The exhibition showcases the work of six recent graduates and alumni from The Royal Drawing School and is open until Sunday 25th February 2024.

You can find out more and view the exhibition online at ⁠⁠fendittongallery.com⁠⁠

This conversation was recorded with emerging artist Ellie Lonsdale who is currently exhibiting at Fen Ditton Gallery as part our Voices in Drawing exhibition. The exhibition showcases the work of six recent graduates and alumni from The Royal Drawing School and is open until Sunday 25th February 2024.

You can find out more and view the exhibition online at ⁠⁠fendittongallery.com⁠⁠

Ellie Lonsdale graduated from Falmouth University with a first-class degree in Illustration, before joining The Drawing Year in 2022. Her practice is driven by narrative, where drawings act as windows into observed and imagined worlds.

Ellie is drawn to capture moments and places where the manmade and natural environments intersect, the relationship between structures that are firm and rooted, and those that are ephemeral. Often returning to the same location over time to build a strong memory of place, her process involves continuous alternation between erasure and addition, allowing compositions to emerge as she works. The images present themselves as a visible history of layers that evoke a sensation of shifting - reflecting how things come and go; seasonal transitions, memories
and people. 

Hello and welcome to the Fen Ditton Gallery podcast, with me Hannah Munby.



This conversation was recorded with emerging artist Euan Evans on my recent visit to his studio in Stoke Newington, to collect the paintings and drawings that are currently on show at Fen Ditton Gallery as part our Voices in Drawing exhibition. The exhibition showcases the work of six recent graduates and alumni from The Royal Drawing School and is open until Sunday 25th February 2024.



Euan Evans was born in Cornwall in 1996, and originally studied Jazz at Leeds Conservatoire before completing the Drawing Year in 2022. He went on to study MA Printmaking at The Royal College of Art and was awarded the Printmaker’s Council Sheila Sloss Award at his graduation show in 2023.



Euan’s training in music allows him to explore the interactions
between improvisation, texture, and composition through visual enquiries. His recent work is poised between sculpture and printmaking, incorporating drawing and painting through his practice. His work is often routed in the personal, using inspiration from places that he has lived.   

 

You can find out more and view the exhibition online at ⁠fendittongallery.com⁠



Exhibition opening times:

Thursdays 11am - 4pm

Weekends 10am - 5pm

Other times by appointment, contact info@fendittongallery.com to book

Agnes Treherne was born in Sussex in 1987. She studied Fine Art and History of Art at the University of Edinburgh, and went on to complete The Drawing Year at The Royal Drawing School, graduating in 2021. In was in the September following her graduation that Agnes first exhibited at Fen Ditton Gallery. 



Agnes’ work is concerned with how our thoughts and articulations are informed by the environments in which we live. She works from the premise that the act of drawing, and the attention it gives to what is being drawn, is fruitful both to the artist and the subject, so that the existence of both is enriched by the other. When there is a figurative element in her paintings and drawings, it is often to convey both connection and dislocation.

 

This conversation was recorded with Agnes on my recent visit to her home in Sussex to collect the paintings and drawings that are currently on show at Fen Ditton Gallery as part our Voices in Drawing exhibition. The exhibition showcases the work of six recent graduates and alumni from The Royal Drawing School and is open until Sunday 25th February.

 

You can find out more and view the exhibition
online at fendittongallery.com



Exhibition opening times:

Thursdays 11am - 4pm

Weekends 10am - 5pm

Other times by appointment, contact info@fendittongallery.com to book