THE Sarnia Arts and Crafts Club’s winter exhibition is up and running at the Sula Gallery, with dozens of artworks displaying a wide variety of styles and subject matters.
The gallery, at the old Salem Chapel in Route Carre, will be home to works in oils, pastels, acrylics, watercolours and more every day, except Sundays, until Saturday 24 October. Visitors to the exhibition are being invited to identify their two favourite pieces and vote for them accordingly, while for those who are suitably inspired, there are club membership forms available to fill in.
Artist Jeanne Langford admits to not having taken up any form of art ‘until well into retirement age’.
‘I had no ambition whatsoever. I just thought “let’s get some colour onto a page”,’ she says.
‘I have to give credit to the U3A here in Guernsey which is a very active organisation. Somebody there was putting on a pastel class. I’d always had a wish to just daub with colour and pastels give great colour, so I joined her group and since then I’ve moved on to become the convenor of the group myself – for quite a few years now.’
While there are ‘lots of Guernsey artists who are excellent at landscape and seascape’, Jeanne has preferred to ‘go the other way’, inspired mostly by Henri Matisse.
‘I like to celebrate the domestic, through still life,’ she says. ‘Not so many do it over here but I love it.’
Paul Williams is experiencing seeing his own work on display for the first time.
‘I’ve been a member of the club for seven years now but this is the first time I’ve actually got round to putting something in an exhibition,’ he says.
‘It’s nice to come here and see your own work on the wall.’
His acrylic representation of a tiger ‘close-to’ represents, he estimates, about 10 hours’ work, but over a long period.
‘I never seem to find time to do very much,’ he says.
‘It’s probably taken more than a month. I like doing wildlife art, and animals in particular.’
Paul has also exhibited at Eisteddfod Guernsey and hopes to do so again.
Sula Gallery owner Hayley Mallett is also among the many artists whose work comprises this latest exhibition. Her piece entitled A World Beneath was inspired by a visit to an aquarium in St Malo.
‘I always find inspiration anywhere I go but anything with detail in colour is for me,’ she says.
‘I bead-embroider onto canvas, so the beads are all individually sewn on and the background is painted in acrylic.’
Hayley studied textile design at Falmouth University and now, she says, ‘gravitates towards mixed media work’.
The patient sewing of beads brings greater permanence, as they are far more securely fastened to the painting than if they had been glued. But the process is time consuming, with some of her pieces taking up to 200 hours.
‘I find it very therapeutic,’ she says, ‘but I also like the way it catches the light differently if you look at it at different times of the day.’
Sharmane Dodd says she has ‘always been creative in one form or another – and I’ve always painted’.
She created her piece Noah’s Chickens during an exhibition organised by the Greenhouse Art Collective, overseen by Alisha Flouquet, James Kail and Emma Griffin.
‘Over three weekends there were exhibitions at three different greenhouse sites, along with workshops and en plein air opportunities where you could go along with a sketch group and sketch for a few hours in the greenhouses,’ Sharmane says.
‘This is how this painting came about. It wasn’t as easy as I thought because the chickens kept moving, but I took photos and finished it when I got home.’
She is also exhibiting cyanotypes of some thinly sliced tomatoes, having chosen to amalgamate the medium with some illustration to produce something that is her own unique style.
‘I attended a workshop in 2025 run by Gill Harrison,’ she says.
‘That was my introduction to the medium and I’m quite obsessed with it now.’
Sue McGregor’s acrylic Derelict Property is an abstract work.
‘Acrylic is really good to move around and it dries quickly too – though there could be some ink in there as well,’ she says.
‘I just go for it. I don’t have any fear.’
She suggests this lack of hesitancy may stem from her upbringing.
‘My dad [Jimmy Lihou] was a very good artist and I still have a lot of his artwork,’ she says.
‘My mum [Brenda Lihou] was really good as well and it’s come down to me, I think. My sister [Marguerite Lihou] is incredibly good at art. I couldn’t do anything as intricate as her work but I can do abstract – I love abstract.’
Sue runs a course via U3A called Art for the Terrified.
‘I love being with the people in my class,’ she says.
‘I love showing them how to play with art rather than being frightened of it.’
u The Sarnia Arts and Crafts Club winter exhibition is at Sula Gallery until 24 October, every day except Sundays from 10am-5.30pm. All the works are for sale.
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