The Gallery

Housed in a restored 18th Century barn, the Arts and Crafts Gallery at Waterperry Gardens near Oxford offers affordable, contemporary art and craft. We specialise in British work, including over 25 Oxfordshire-based artists, and exhibit a wide range of ceramics, glass, jewellery, wood, paintings and textiles.

Our Artist pages (see left) give visitors an overview of the work we have in our Arts and Crafts Gallery.

Jennie Gilbert - Featured Artist

Our Featured Artist this month is potter Jennie Gilbert.

Jennie's work is both functional and decorative, her Mishima range being particularly stunning. Largely hand-thrown, her work includes a selection of vases, jugs, mugs, lampbases and platters.

Jennie will also be showing her work at Art in Action this year.

Art in the Teashop - Emmie van Biervliet

Exhibiting in the Teashop throughout June and July is mixed media artist Emmie van Biervliet.

Emmie uses an eclectic range of materials in her work, from coffee to newspaper and even lego, building up fascinating layers to reflect the mood, and often the story, of the places depicted.

Focusing predominantly on the exotic, colourful landscapes and architecture of places such as Cuba, Mongolia and China, her images evoke their atmosphere and convey the artist's passion for exploring different lands.

Coming soon...

Art in the Teashop - Valerie Petts

We are delighted to have Valerie Petts exhibiting her work in the Teashop throughout August and September.

Valerie is widely known for her beautiful watercolour paintings of the Oxfordshire countryside, including many of Waterperry, and has recently taken up painting in oils. A range of her work will be on show, with prints and cards also available in the Gallery.

Gallery Newsletter

The Arts and Crafts Gallery produces a quarterly newsletter, containing information about exhibitions and events at the Gallery.

You can download the most recent issue by clicking on the link to the right or, if you would prefer to receive every issue via email, please send an email with the word 'Newsletter' in the subject line to gallery@waterperrygardens.co.uk

Mailing List

We would love to keep you updated with specific events and information on new artists, so just email us on gallery@waterperrygardens.co.uk and we will add you to our mailing list.

Past Events

Art in the Teashop - Amanda Ross

Printmaker Amanda Ross exhibited a selection of her exquisite botanical prints in the Teashop throughout April and May.

Inspired by the British countryside, each image is hand-printed using several layers of botanical cuttings which Amanda inks and tranfers onto a selection of fabrics. The resulting pieces are unique and evoke the many faces of nature, from structured simplicity to wild chaos.

A selection of Amanda's work is also available in the Gallery, along with a range of her greeting cards.

Artweeks 2010

In May this year we hosted an exciting exhibition as part of Oxfordshire Artweeks. Varied work from five local artists and craftspeople included jewellery, ceramics, glasswork, textiles and watercolours, and there were opportunities to meet the artists and see them at work throughout May.

Exhibitors included Ken Messer, Sally Spencer, Ann Brooks, Tanja Entwistle and Kate Garwood.

Featured Artist - Daren Greenhow

We are delighted to welcome local sculptor Daren Greenhow back as our Featured Artist throughout April.

Daren creates distinctive and humorous sculptures using mainly pieces from old bikes, and we have a variety of pieces both inside and outside the Gallery.

Ranging from his new wall-hanging Dragonfly through to his well-known Fish on a Bike (right), there are sculptures that will bring a smile to your face and challenge your knowledge of bicycle parts! The exhibition will run to the end of April.

Art in the Teashop - Laura Bardell

Laura Bardell exhibited a selection of her recent oil paintings in the Teashop throughout February and March this year.

Laura uses a subtle range of colours, gradually building up layers of paint to create understated, emotive images.

"I am drawn to places that feel like secret worlds; a beautiful cold morning, a heavy silence hanging in the air. A sense of exploration shapes my work…always drawing on memory, imagination and nostalgia."

Featured Artist - Rose Hallam, January 2010

Rose Hallam was our featured artist in January 2010, showing a broad range of her jewellery. Rose uses wood, paper, card and photomontage to make highly original jewellery, handrolling beads, which she then lacquers to create durable and light jewellery. She often uses photographs taken at Art in Action to create ranges of jewellery for the gallery, and changes her work with the seasons.

Several ranges of Rose's work are permanently on display in the Gallery.

Art in the Teashop - Mary Thorp

Mary Thorp exhibited a range of her ethereal photographic images in the Teashop throughout December and January. The images begin life as spontaneously taken digital photographs, which are then manipulated and washed with colour to draw out the stark forms. With a lifelong passion for colour, light and architectural form, her emotive artwork conveys the experience of wide open space, the drama of wind and sky, and of natural light changing over the landscape.

Art in the Teashop - Sue Brown

Showing in the Teashop throughout October and November is Printmaker Sue Brown. Combining Collographs with various other printmaking techniques, Sue's images are given life and character by her use of rich textures and layers of ink. Chickens and cows are among her chosen subject matter, which will be shown alongside new work.

Featured Artist - Lis Lawrence, October 2009

Our Featured Artist throughout October was Lis Lawrence, who exhibited a wide range of her felt accessories.

Lis creates her beautiful range of accessories by hand-rolling felt, often using organically produced, British fleece. Handrolling is a very physical process, which requires heat, moisture and friction to bind the wool fibres together. The resulting material is ideal for accessories such as bags and hats, being a strong, tactile, warm, lightweight, non-fraying, fire-resistant, washable and bio-degradable.

The final result when working with felt is always unpredictable, so each piece is unique. Lis spent a day at the gallery demonstrating her felting techniques to vistors.

Featured Artist - Rachel Ducker, July 2009

Our Featured artist for July was Rachel Ducker. Rachel's dynamic figures exude energy, their wild hair caught mid-action. Life-size figures through to tiny figures only a few centimetres high were exhibited, and a selection of her work remains on display.

Deborah Poole feltworks

Exhibiting in the Teashop throughout June and July 2009 was Buckinghamshire-based artist Deborah Poole and her beautiful feltworks.

Deborah finds inspiration in nature to build up her unique images from hand-rolled felt. Movement and depth is created by the rich colours, and the texture of the fleece.

Examples of Deborah's work can be seen in the Gallery.

Artweeks 2009

Six local artists took part in Artweeks at the gallery this year, exhibiting their work throughout the month of May. A diverse range of textiles by Ann Brooks and Laura Sollis, sculpture by Tom Stogdon, digital prints by Mary Thorp, glasswork by Elaine Newson and jewellery by Sally Spencer was featured, and the artists were on hand on selected days throughout the month to talk about their work.

Featured Artist - Zoe Preston

Featured artist Zoe Preston spent the day at the Gallery on Saturday 4th April demonstrating some of her painting techniques and talking to visitors about her work. Zoe's watercolour exhibition remains on display in the Teashop throughout May.

Zoe will be teaching a Painting Flowers watercolour workshop at Waterperry on 14th May.

Featured Artist - Lucy Jade Sylvester

Exhibiting her work throughout January was Oxfordshire-based Jeweller and Silversmith Lucy Jade Sylvester .

The intricate structures of insects and natural objects form the basis of Lucy's jewellery. This gives her work a unique fascination, encouraging the wearer to develop a new appreciation of objects not normally considered to be beautiful.

Lucy spent the day at the Gallery on Saturday 3^rd January demonstrating and talking to visitors about her work.

Selected pieces of Lucy's work remain on display in the Gallery.

Featured Artist - Christopher Townsend

Local sculptor Christopher Townsend was our Featured Artist throughout the month of October. We exhibited a wide range of his indoor and outdoor sculpture, from his striking metal Trees to his energetic horse-shoe nail figures. A selection of Christopher's work, including 'The Wychwood' remains on display in the Gallery.

Raku Firing Demonstration

On Saturday 23^rd August, three members of John Hine pottery, well known for their characterful sculptures of hares, spent the day outside the gallery showing visitors how the unique Raku firing process works.

Sculptures are fired in the kiln and then submerged in wood chip while still white-hot. This causes the distinctive crackled glaze, making every piece unique. John Hine's hares are a regular feature in the Gallery.

Featured Artist - Gemma Wheeler

Local Silversmith and Jeweller Gemma Wheeler was the second in a series of Featured Artists to exhibit at the Gallery at Waterperry. On Saturday 5th July Gemma set up her studio in the Gallery and demonstrated some of her working techniques to visitors. She showed the process of making a pair of her Curved Wire earrings, and talked about various techniques she uses to make the work on display including etching, printing and twisting silver.

Also on display was a selection of Gemma's silverware, some of which also incorporates surface textures derived from etching. She creates unique pieces, ranging from hand-raised bowls, trinket boxes, and Jam Sticks etched with hand-written jam recipes.

Artweeks Exhibition

It was a lively day at the Gallery on Saturday 3rd May, when visitors had the opportunity to chat to the four artists exhibiting their work here throughout Artweeks.

Valerie Petts and Ann Brooks demonstrated their working methods, while Sally Spencer and Noriko MacFarlane were on-hand to talk about their specialisms.

This was the first time for a number of years that the gallery has taken part in Artweeks, and it will now be a regular feature in the calendar.

Featured Artist Exhibition

Daren Greenhow also spent a day at the Gallery at the beginning of April to mark the start of an exhibition of his work.

The work on show ranged from smaller pieces such as his Wall Lizard inside the Gallery, to his 5' tall Fish on a Bicycle, which attracted a lot of attention outside.

Daren's work is regularly on display in the Gallery for those wanting to see new work.

Opening Times

OPEN EVERY DAY

Easter - October 10:30am - 5.30pm
November - Easter 10:30am - 5.00pm