Press Release
12 | 08 | 21
Paintings by Anna Calleja
with ceramics by Sarah Purvey
9October to 6 November 2021
Peaceful Melancholy, 2021, 20 x 25 cm, oil on panel | Anna Calleja
This October New Craftsman Gallery presents a collection of diminutive paintings by rising young Maltese artist Anna Calleja. Anna graduated with a BA (Hons) in Fine Art from Falmouth University in 2020. Her current body of work relates to the comfort of home and quiet moments of introspection, and the small scale of each work - just 20cm x 25cm - is tied to the intimacy and domesticity that each work conveys. Her work is autobiographical and draws from a variety of personal sources, including her return to Malta after 3 years of living abroad, and the more universal experience of the global pandemic, in which our domestic space has become both a haven and a cage. Her paintings look back to her own notions of comfort, confront an anxious present and grapple with an uncertain future, exploring the link between domesticity and warmth, the duality of comfort and uncertainty, and how the online world has become a metaphysical space for us to escape to. Anna has exhibited in Malta and abroad, at the Wignacourt Museum in Malta and at Tate St. Ives, Porthmeor Studios, and at the Mall Galleries in London. In 2020, her painting,Alone in Quarantinewas awarded a Winsor and Newton Young Artist Award at the Royal Institute of Oil Painters Annual Exhibition.
Also for this exhibition, ceramicist Sarah Purvey has produced a body of work which explores the relationship between her drawings on paper and her clay practice. Her large vessels bring together ideas of mark and form, and are known for their visceral, tactile quality. The way that a figurative artist repeats drawings in order to interpret their subject, and the way that a landscape artist interprets the details of the land, are all apparent in the shape and texture of her strikingly powerful works. Sarah Purvey completed a BA (Hons) and later a Masters Degree in ceramics at Bath Spa University and is currently Artist in Residence at the Corsham Court Campus of Bath Spa University. She exhibits widely in the UK and abroad, and her works on paper and in clay are held in collections at the Swindon Museum and Art Gallery, the Chippenham Museum in Wiltshire, and as part of the Bath Spa University Art Collection.
Echoes, Drawing on eco paper (left), and Boundary, ceramic(right) | Sarah Purvey
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Print Ready 300dpi images for press use:
ANNA CALLEJA Peaceful Melancholy
SARAH PURVEY Echoes
SARAH PURVEY Boundary
Editors Notes
New Craftsman St Ives
With an international reputation amongst art and craft collectors for its painting, sculpture and quality studio ceramics, the New Craftsman is regarded as one of the most important spaces for contemporary artists in St Ives. Founded in the mid-1960s by potter Janet Leach, it holds an unrivalled reputation as one of the country's leading art and craft venues. Today the gallery's annual programme of mixed and solo exhibitions continues to support the work of Cornwall's and the UK's very best painters and craftspeople.
New Craftsman Gallery, 24 Fore Street, St. Ives, Cornwall TR26 1HE | Tel: +44 (0)1736 795652 |info@newcraftsmanstives.com|www.newcraftsmanstives.com
For further press information or additional images contact Mercedes Smith at Fine Art Communications director@fineartcommunications.co.uk / Tel 07825 270235 / www.fineartcommunications.co.uk
