Venue 11 Vanessa Bowman
Oil paintings of domestic interiors
Vanessa graduated from Winchester School of Art in 1993 with a First Class Honours degree in Printed Textile Design. During her time there she won the Eileen Bendall and the Sanderson prizes for drawing, and the Daler Rowney Young Artist award - for pastels exhibited in the Mall Galleries - two years running.
Vanessa quickly established herself as a successful printed textile designer, selling to the US, Japanese and European markets. At the same time, she continued to show her paintings in galleries in London and the South West, including a one woman show at Winchester’s Theatre Royal. Recent oil paintings show a departure from earlier oil pastels and watercolours: Vanessa’s still lives explore a quieter palette and study of dimension using familiar objects from her home. Vanessa lives in West Dorset with her husband and three children. Her father and sister are both established artists, and it is this artistic intimacy, coupled with travel and the Dorset landscape, that provides much of her inspiration.
www.vannessabowman.co.uk

Venue 13 Nicola Butler
Botanical watercolours
Nicola trained to be a botanical artist in 1998 at the Chelsea Physic Garden in London, where she was taught botanical illustration under the tuition of Anne Marie Evans. In 2005 she won a Silver Guilt medal for her illustrations from the Royal Horticultural Society.
From her garden studio in Cattistock she paints intricate studies of flowers, fruit and vegetables in watercolour. Further to her own work, she teaches and holds workshops for interested groups in Dorset.

Venue 16 Virginia Day
Semi-abstract sculpture
Virginia Day was trained at St Martin's School of Art in London, in the USA and Studio Sem, Pietrasanta, Italy. Her preference lies in direct carving in wood and stone. Her talent for this was recognised when her first bronze was accepted by the Royal Academy for their Summer Exhibition.
A critic has written, "Her work has a controlled classicism and its seeming simplicity embodies feminie qualities of mystery, vulnerability and reserved sensuality."
www.virginiaday.co.uk

Venue 22 Merrily Harpur
Cartoonist
Merrily Harpur is a cartoonist, illustrator and painter. She has contributed regular cartoons and illustrations to all the national broadsheets as well as Private Eye, The Spectator, Country Living and Punch magazine. Three collections of her own cartoons have been published by Penguin and Robson Books, and she has illustrated books by Kingsley Amis, Gerald Durrell, Jill Tweedie, Miles Kington, Michael Frayn, John Michell, Candida Lycett Green, James Fenton and many more. She is currently painting landscapes in oils.
www.harpur.org

Venue 12 Emily Myers
Ceramics
Emily Myers, ceramic artist, makes vases and other vessels on the potter's wheel. She uses carving and facetting techniques as well as employing beautiful glazes. Strong elegant forms with fine crisp lines and deep colours characterize Emily's work. She draws on both organic and architectural themes.
Based near Andover in Hampshire, Emily Myers is a Craft Council Selected Maker and a fellow of The Craft Potters' Association. Her work can be seen in selected galleries and shops including the Contemporary Ceramics in London and Beaux Arts in Bath. Exhibitions have included solo shows in the Shire Hall Gallery, Stafford, UK; Beaux Arts, Bath, UK; and Contemporary Ceramics, London.
www.emilymyers.com

Venue 12 Liz Somerville
Hand-coloured linocuts
Since being a teenager Liz has experimented with print. The technique she is working with now combines relief print with gouache. This allows her to re-work a single image many times, changing its appearance in each case; essentially, each piece of work is unique. Using this technique she produces highly illustrative drawings of the idiosyncratic hills and forests that surround her studio in west Dorset. Inspired by Hepworth, Nash and Bawden, her imagery concentrates on landscape and the incidental forms and structures found within it. Her most recent work explores the texture, rhythm and muscularity of land.
www.lizsomerville.co.uk

CATTISTOCK GARDENS FESTIVAL 2009