Pictures at an Exhibition
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Opening Reception: Sunday 22nd July, 15:00
Charlotte Leadbeater is a fine artist who graduated from Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts, London in 1967. Between 2000 and 2006 she worked as an executive director of the Russian ballet company, Swansea’s Ballet Russe. She exhibits nationally and internationally and is on file with the National Gallery (Portraits)and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. She exhibited at the Vaganova Ballet Academy at St Petersburg in 1999, and at the Necrasov Museum for the 2003 St Petersburg celebrations. She has recently taken part in a group exhibition in the Central library in St Petersburg with her dear friend and artist Olga Alexeeva. As chairman of the Ballet Russe Charitable Trust she helped set up an effective artists’ network of dance and art workshops with the ballet company, including some for students of The Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. These have been featured on HTV and BBC2. She also set up a group exhibition, travelling Wales-wide, of Russian and Welsh Contemporay artists together with Russian ballet memorabilia (including Anna Pavlova’s necklace and Nicholas Legat’s artifacts and drawings). She has been involved in art education for forty years, lecturing part-time in Swansea Institute of Higher Education and was Head of Art for many years in Christ College Brecon. In 2010 she supervised a group of 10 prize winning drawing students from Carmarthenshire secondary schools on a visit to study the Fine art methods at the Repin Academy in St Petersburg. She now works part time with Swansea University running accredited adult education art classes. She lectures to art groups nationally, as well as running courses and workshops. She is the resident artist at Abergwili Primary School in Carmarthen (her pupils’ work can be seen on the Urdd Eisteddfod website with a first in textiles (Year 5 and 6) She is a founder member and Chairman of the King Street Gallery co-operative in Carmarthen . The paintings in this exhibition feature ballet inspired by visiting and watching dancers in the UK and Russia, portraits and studies from London locations. Musicians are featured as well, as she loves artists who ‘live and work in the moment’ Her mother, husband Tim and family of three children and five grandchildren have made this all possible with their love, help and encouragement.
Olga Alexeeva, the Russian artist, has been using a variety of subjects and techniques during her artistic career. She was born in St Petersburg (then called Leningrad), and is a graduate of the Monumental (Mural) Painting Department of the Mukhinski Institute — one of the best-known fine art academies in Russia. After her graduation in 1970s she spent 9 years in the Siberian city of Barnaul, where she completed a considerable number of large murals and mosaics for public buildings. The theme of these was mainly music, folk fairy-tails and theatre. The most significant of all her works from that period (in cooperation with G Alexeev) were 8 substantial Florentine mosaic compositions on the subject of Siberian nature for the underground stations in the city. This commission allowed Olga to develop her profound interest in nature and movement, which she came to address more deeply on her return from Siberia and which coincided with the massive political changes associated with Perestroika and the end of the Soviet era in Russia. Like for many others, this time had reflected a change in OIga’s career when artists were striving to adjust to the cultural “revoIution” and to find a new place in the rapidly transforming Russian social and cultural life. The state had stopped financing large monumental pieces of work and artists had to find work from private clients, which essentially meant down-sizing the scale of the works produced. ln the beginning of the 90s Olga completed a large series of small mosaics entitled “Flowers and butterfIies”. Having become a follower of the Baha’i faith, she had also produced a large number of mosaics on the symbolism of Baha’i religion. Since mid1990s the focus of OIga’s creative art has been ballet, and realised in the making of porcelain dancing figures which she calls “doIIs”. Olga believes that dance is an action both fleeting and defined by the boundaries of time but simultaneously exists outside of the scale of time, and becomes eternal when a movement is caught in sculptural form. She believes that dolls represent an ancient and simple form of art and combine plasticity of movement, colours and variety of styles and characters. Ballet is a much loved form of performance art in Russia and therefore ballet dolls have always been very popular. For the last 20 years Olga has created numerous sculptures representing ballet dancers. She derives her inspiration from the classical “Russian Seasons” Ballet tradition at ` Mariinsky Theatre, as well as some legendary historical ballet characters of Ballet Russe such as a ballet dancer Vatslav Nizhinsky, Anna Pavlova, Maya Plissetskaya and others. These were privately commissioned by Russian clients as pieces of sculpture. Recently Olga has been also working on small-scale porcelain and ceramic sculptures on various non-ballet related subjects. For many years Olga’s dolls and sculptures have been exhibited and sold in the Mariinski Theatre in St Petersburg. She also regularly exhibits at various art exhibitions which include venues in Russia, US, Norway, Malta and UK. July 2012 London show is OIga’s third in UK — a result of the longstanding friendship between her and Welsh artist Charlotte Leadbeater. The pair has exhibited together in the past both in Russia and in Wales (the Welsh Tour took place in 2004). Olga has been working during some interesting and complex times in Russia when the old world has been replaced by a new one. In her work she manages to achieve a fine balance between the past and the present. Her works are elegant, historically accurate and aesthetically uncompromising. Her dancers are passionate, beautiful and eternal. Silently they dance to the Music of Time. O.S. Cannon-Brookes.
Andrew Douglas Forbes studied at Swansea art college and the Royal Academy of Music as a prestigious post graduate scholar. Andrew has exhibited from a young age ,having had numerous one man shows,both in Wales and north America. Andrew has exhibited with wales premier art gallery for many years and has works in the permanent collection of public welsh galleries. Andrew won 3 prizes at his first showing at the Welsh artists of the year competition,and has been a major figure on the Welsh art scene for the past ten years. Andrew won the world opera competition,musica per Roma In 2,000 and has had an international career as a tenor since then.he is a truly world class tenor with a voice described by none other than Nicolai Gedda as ‘liquid gold’. The studio is a Georgian chapel in Llandeilo which has the most wonderful vista of the Brecon hills and affords a most glorious warm light. This will be Andrews first showing at a London gallery,he has been sketching London throughout the Winter for this show.
Anthony Eyton RA, will be opening the exhibition on Sunday 22nd July, 15:00. Anthony Eyton studied fine art at Reading University in 1941 before serving in the Army from 1942 to 1947. He went on to study at Camberwell School of Art from 1947 to 1950, and in 1951 received an Abbey Major Scholarship, taking him to work in Italy. Eyton was Head of Painting at St Lawrence College, Kingston, Ontario in 1969 and taught at the Royal Academy Schools from 1964 to 1999. Among his many significant commissions and exhibitions, his work is collected by the Arts Council, British Museum, Imperial War Museum and The Tate Gallery.