Hawthorn Artist Society | Exhibit at 645 Glenferrie Road, Hawthorn

Kathy Best

Kathy is a local emerging artist who has been painting consistently since 2008 under the guidance of many tutors. She is continuously learning and thinking of new ideas and completed her Certificate IV in Visual Arts in 2021. Kathy creates bold, expressive acrylic abstracts and contemporary paintings based on observation of the world around her. The works are predominately based on the present landscape and landscapes observed while travelling. She sometimes paints loosely from reference photos or memory. Other times she lets the paint and marks on the canvas guide her. Kathy’s works explore colour relationships, impasto texture, movement, shapes and layers. @kathybest.art https://kathy-best.com/

Ken Wight

Ken Wight currently convenes an untutored abstract painting group on Thursday afternoons as part of the Hawthorn Art Society classes operating from the basement at Hawthorn Arts Centre. Ken only started painting less than 10 years ago, on retirement, and was delighted to find the sessions to be great fun. He enjoys the freedom that abstraction provides, allowing the artist to focus on the moment and find images in everyday environments. This has expanded this approach into his ‘non-painter’ life where he also enjoys recording abstract shapes, detail and colours of daily life through photography. Ken admits: ‘even a clumsy left-hander like me (who can’t draw) can have a great time making marks in any conceivable way and responding to the ideas that burst out from within.’

Alex Bridge

Alex has painted all her life and has exhibited at group and solo settings around Victoria since 2016. Her paintings explore elements of nature in abstract form, especially the details in the natural and man-made environment that form pattern and repetition, distilling light, movement and moment. Alex uses gestural marks leaving the brushstrokes raw and immediate. The texture of the media used, the juxtaposition of marks and considered colours are all important parts of the whole. Colours are mixed to react in combination and the layers of different texture describe light and show the progression of the work. The piece exhibited, Grasslands 1, describes travelling through an outback landscape where spinifex and grasses are lit by the dusky sun. Dark umber shadows creep across the hot earth in the late afternoon.creating ripples and undulations into the distance.

0402848128 bridgefamily10@gmail.com

Kathy, Ken, and Alex are all current members of Hawthorn Artist Society, where they can be found at the weekly abstract art studio in The Basement, under the Hawthorn Arts Centre. If you are interested in meeting them or joining any of these classes, or if you want further information on these or other studios and classes in offer, please visit us at: www.hawthornartistsociety.org