Sir Terry Frost RA (1915-2003) is widely recognised as one of the most renowned artists of his generation. Sir Terry Frosts work is enriched with great passion and vitality. Frost’s work reflects his gratitude and joie de vivre at having survived wartime incarceration, it is full of light and the pleasure of existence. Frost took his inspiration from nature; the sun, moon, water, boats and the female form are recurring motifs abstracted into sensuous circles and curves. These shapes are often coloured in dramatic blues, reds, oranges, yellows and blacks. Frost believed that the interplay of colour and shape could realise an event or image more successfully than imitation, a practice that is key to the execution of abstract work and the abstract movement as a whole.
Born in London in 1925, Sandra Blow RA was one of the leading lights of the abstract art movement of the 1950s. Her works are often on a large scale and consist of abstract collages made up from cheap discarded materials such as sawdust, cut-out strips of old canvas, plaster and torn paper. Her practice successfully sought out the precious in materials that are mundane and unwanted which is very reflective of the time and age during which she lived and worked. A St Martin's School of Art graduate, Sandra Blow’s works have a tactile as well as visual emphasis on surface, and her use of simple large geometric shapes lends a feeling of expansiveness and dynamism. Blow sadly passed away in 2006 but her mark on British art was one that no doubt inspired her contemporaries and the generation of abstractionists that followed.
Donald Hamilton Fraser RA participated in some of the most significant exhibitions of British work including the Royal Academy's 25 Years of British Painting, where he was also a Royal Academician and a trustee since 1995. During his phenomenal career he exhibited his highly acclaimed work in London, Paris, New York, Tokyo, Zurich and many other cities around the world. Utilising 25 colours and glaze, his limited edition silk screen prints of landscapes have brought him much acclaim. He remains true to the forms of his subject matter, whilst forming abstract, almost dream-like fields of colour. Fraser imbues his works with an emotional intensity that is beyond their superficial beauty and his composition is most certainly rich and compelling in dramatic irony.
Barbara Rae's favourite destination is Spain. Providing her with endless inspiration. From the vivid sun-drenched colours of Spain to her latest silkscreen prints; Rae's paintings combine the influence of landscape and travel with painterly abstraction that touches the heart of the viewer every time. As a past Lecturer in Drawing, Painting and Printmaking at Aberdeen College of Education and at Glasgow School of Art, Rae possesses a multi disciplinary approach to creating visual art: the way she conceives and works on her monoprints, screen prints and etchings complements and informs her approach to painting. She has been a treasured artist among many private collections in Britain, Europe and the USA, as well as in many public and corporate collections.
John Hoyland RA has been called ‘Europe’s answer to Mark Rothko’. Regarded as the leading abstract artist of his generation, Hoyland’s works are powerful and richly coloured, built up from layers of thick paint. Rivers of colour run over the surface, often focussed on a cell-like central focus to the composition. The effects of his images have been said to inspire the spirit, liberate and fire the imagination, arrest the eye and quicken the pulse! It is for this reason that throughout his career, Hoyland has experienced much success exhibiting extensively inside some of Britain’s greatest galleries and institutions. To name a few he has enjoyed a string of national and international solo exhibitions at the Serpentine Gallery, the Sackler Galleries of the Royal Academy, the Tate Gallery Liverpool and the Barbican gallery.
