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Gordon Kemp

Gordon Kemp lives by his words. A painter, sculptor, poet, amateur mime and banjo player, Kemp is forever engaging wholeheartedly with his surroundings and making art. A few years ago at his first solo exhibition, Microcosmic, he put on a puppet show about five insects to help visitors understand his paintings of nature's sub-miniature world. This is just Kemp - always full of playful, creative surprises.

Paul Mantrop

Four years ago accomplished portrait painter Paul Mantrop was dragged on a canoe trip with his buddies only to find a model he would never tire of.

Her name was Mother Nature. "There are moments in our lives when nature graciously reveals herself," says Mantrop today. "I am motivated to understand and express these sensations - this song."


David Marshak

It's pretty simple when it comes down to it. I paint light. Whether I'm driving on a country road or walking around at 3am in the city, it's always the light that strikes me. I'm trying to capture that moment that everyone experiences, when you just stop for a second and say "wow".

Hopefully the viewer can feel a connection with the painting and in some way know what it felt like at that one time and place. If so then I feel like I'm starting to accomplish what I've set out to do.

Steve McDonald

Travelling, trees, and painting - a few of Steve McDonald's favourite things, and the reason why he has found work that he loves.

"This is a job I won't ever need to retire from," says McDonald, who always knew he wanted to be an artist of some kind. "It combines all my passions in one."


Chris Roberts

Although it only made sense to him a few years ago, Chris Roberts had been cultivating the eye and mind of a landscape painter for years. "Suddenly all the canoe trips I'd guided at summer camp, and the environmental papers I'd written at university echoed in my mind; but now I wanted to express my connection with the land in paint," he explains.

Rob Saley

As a landscape painter, nothing pleases Robert Saley more than stumbling across a rusted old car or animal carcass in the middle of a forest or field.

"In my work I try to feature those things that others overlook, forget or discard," he explains. Often Saley does this by fastening found objects like bullet shells, saw blades and fishing lures around his painting of the area in which they were discovered. This concept very effectively reminds the viewer of past human presence in a certain place.