Artist Profiles
Sara Alleyn
Sara Alleyn lives and works in Oxford. She studied at the Courtauld Institute of Art 1976-79 and later, in the 1990s, at Central St Martins.
Her paintings do not easily fit into definable categories as her interests cover a wide range of subjects: figurative drawing, dance and movement, portraits, landscape and latterly a concern with simplified and expressive abstract form.
She works in a variety of media, from chalk and charcoal to gouache, ink, watercolour, enamel and oil.
Miranda Creswell
Miranda Creswell studied at Camberwell School of Art in the 1980s and has since then held many solo and group exhibitions in the UK and abroad, the Menier Gallery ( London), Modern Art Oxford, Ely Cathedral; in Leiden, Holland ( as part of a 400th anniversary of Rembrandt’s birth) and in the British Art Exhibition in Perm, Russia.
She has taught in Brixton Prison, for the educational outreach work at Modern Art Oxford and in the hospital school at the John Raddcliffe Hospital.
She has, in the last few years held art residencies at the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre, Harris Manchester College , Oxford and for Helex (Centre for Law, Health and Emerging Technologies, Oxford University).
She is currently working on a series of painted drawings in her studio in Oxford.
Michael Holyoke
Michael Holyoke is 51.
At university he studied Art History, Maths and Philosophy. In art, he is principally interested in drawing.
He is currently working on a proposal to build a tower of Babel from discarded books.
Doke Ostle
Doke Ostle, graduated from Brookes University in 2006.
Her work is both politically engaged and ephemeral. She works closely with the seasons and the plants grown on her allotment.
“Collateral Damage” was exhibited in Aix en Provence and Montpellier in 2010, and in April 2011 at The Point Gallery in British Columbia.
“Collateral Damage” is a collection of portraits, made of pressed poppy petals in remembrance of innocent victims who have lost their lives in recent conflicts.
Caroline Seymour
Caroline Seymour is a photographer; she uses mainly black and white film, which she processes and prints in her darkroom in the traditional way.
She has exhibited in Oxford and London, and her images have been used for book and album covers.
She studied History of Art at the Courtauld Institute and Chelsea School of Art.
She lives in Oxford with her 12 yr old son.
Francesca Shakespeare
Francesca Shakespeare is one of the founding members of The Phil and Jim Art Club and believes passionately in the importance of visual experimentation in the development and well being of people of all ages.
She teaches at St Clare’s International College as well as doing annual projects at The Ashmolean Museum.
Her own work is done either on her travels, or back in her garden studio in Oxford. Over the years she has developed her own methods using plaster, pigments, waxes and bas relief.
Her work is influenced by her years living in Italy and her love of fresco, colour and texture. Before moving to Oxford, she ran a mural and decorative arts business from a studio in Nottinghill. She had two solo shows at The New Grafton Gallery, and currently has work in galleries in Uk, Ireland and Morocco, as well as participating in Oxfordshire Artweeks every year.
She is married with three teenage children.
