Best Friends Exhibition

1 November - 31 December 2025

What is a best friend? 

Someone or something you can rely on? We invited 8 artists to respond to the brief and the outcomes are wide ranging and engaging with wit, delight, enchantment and sentiment.

We are pleased to say that charm and joy pervade the exhibition - which is exactly its intent. You can discover not only cats and dogs but also horses, donkeys, birds, an anteater, an okapi and many more. Each sculpture is beautifully crafted in form and material.

All the exhibits are for immediate sale, but be aware that we sell from the wall, so hurry.

Ceramicist Helen Higgins

Helen Higgins is a prize winning ceramicist, nationally renowned for her humorous ceramics. Her pieces are individually hand built employing slab, coil, pinch and modelling techniques, to create her characters. She loves dressing her animals up in costumes - creating animal hybrids with anthropomorphic vibes. 

“I endeavour to explore how we sometimes try to hide our true selves behind a façade, masking our own vulnerabilities by pretending or taking on other characteristics, with the intention of increasing self-esteem and confidence."

Her busy studio and teaching practice is based in south Wales.

Figurative Ceramicist Jean Tolkovosky

Surrey based ceramicist Jean Tolkovsky, is a nationally renowned sculptor specialising in figurative work. Her sculptures are each unique pieces inspired by myths, novels and childhood memories. The dream-like quality of her work is achieved not only in the form, but also in the sensitive rendering of the glazes and mark making.

Jean's masked and anthropomorphic figures reveal a fascination and intrigue to the multiple facets of the human persona.  Her aim is to suggest the narrative, whilst leaving a space for further contemplation by the viewer.

Jean Tolkovsky's sculptures are collected around the world.

Mixed-Media Artist Gemma Rees 

Gemma Rees is a Sussex based artist specialising in creating highly textured canine sculptures.

After a career as a professional graphic designer, she experimented with 3D materials and from there her passion for making animal sculptures grew. Her specialism is dogs and how their quirky characters evolve through the process of doing a drawing, making a wire armature and then working with paper clay and resin to create the surface. Some sculptures are very labour intensive, taking weeks to build. Her aim is not to shape a realistic canine, but instead interpret its personality through the materials and gestural form.

Wildlife Ceramicist Elaine Peto

Elaine Peto has spent a lifetime being inspired by the natural world. From her studio in Hampshire she studies animal behaviour, their forms and characteristics. Elaine's portfolio includes ceramic sculptures of farm and wild animals and even sea creatures. She specialises in creating one-off pieces using textured stoneware and porcelain clay.

“ My aim is to capture the essence of the beast”

Animal Ceramicist Joanne Cooke

Yorkshire based, Joanne Cooke has spent the last 25 years sharing her love of animals by creating life-like ceramic sculptures. Her primary fascination is with dogs and their captivating characters and playful natures. Each pose and facial expression is carefully worked in clay until it conveys the essence of the animal.

Joanne individually sculpts each dog out of stoneware clay, then decorates them with a combination of matt underglaze and shiny top glaze.

Ceramicist Emma Rowley

Yorkshire based ceramicist, Emily Rowley, creates charming sculptures that aim to make you smile. Through building the form in stoneware clay she imbues character by the application of textures and pattern. Each piece is a delightful statement that brings humour and cheer.

"The ceramics I make, through pattern and personality, evoke feelings of nostalgia and cosiness. They comfort you like an old friend coming round for a cuppa".

Ceramicist Christy Keeney

Internationally renowned sculptor, Christy Keeney, studied ceramics at the Royal College of Art in London. After spending 17 years in London, Christy returned to his native Donegal where he now lives and works with his family.

His sculptures have a strong narrative quality that invites you to contemplate the story behind the work.  He sculpts and draws into slabs of wet clay creating heads and disjointed figures that investigate the human condition.

His forms often extend to the point where sculpture and drawing meld.  He uses washes of colour to denote mood and atmosphere, whilst sometimes opting for a monochromatic palette to heighten the form's impact.

Miniaturist Ceramicist Andrew Bull

Kent based sculptor Andrew Bull specialises in making quirky porcelain miniatures. His light-hearted approach captures the essence of humour in everyday situations: whether walking the dog or hanging out the washing. Each animated character tells a story that engages and delights. For Andrew, a best friend doesn't have to be an animal or person, it can also be a car or a bag of golf clubs - always there when you need it!

Andrew uses rolled and slab building techniques to carefully create each sculpture by hand, adding lustres and enamels to highlight key accents.

Being Home Collection

A Collection of Original Oil Paintings by Jac Scott.

An antidote to fast living.

The domestic space has long held a fascination with many artists. Whatever the medium, to transpose the enigmatic and the mundane of home, is an enduring focus. Often drawing our attention to the small and overlooked elements, these still life works form narratives on our way of living.

Here Scott is preoccupied with the celebration of the joy of home comforts and the reflection of her feelings that these simple objects bring. By painting atmospheric vignettes, she focusses our gaze on a few items that capture the essence of the subject.

Her own country home forms the canvas for this unique collection with her love of old crockery, antique books and flowers emanating throughout the paintings. The casual, contemporary format of the compositions, the painterly style of the brushwork and the saturated colour palette, create an inviting window into the artist's world.

"I want to create pictures that are colour baths to wallow in and to soak up the warmth. The cosy style should feel like a wall-based hug".

"I want to enjoy wobbly towers of pretty vintage teacups, rows of mis-matched tea plates, (maybe a butterfly has landed on one?) clusters of quirky old tea and coffee pots, worn squashy sofas, and stacks of well-read books."

The Home Collection is an evolving body of work, so expect nuances and surprises along the way.

Plated Collection

I have had a passion for antique white plates for many years and collect reticulated ones - they make a lovely display on the wall with unusual shadows through the holes. My collection is not extensive as good ones are hard to find and those with chips or cracks are not of interest. Displaying them in groups makes a strong statement. So it was this love of old white plates that ignited the idea of collecting interesting vintage white plates. They have to speak to me in some way.  Painting original still lifes on them hopefully makes them covetable again.

It's fun to do and I enjoy the immediacy of it. My drawings and paintings take so long to do, whilst the plates are relatively quick - although of course the oil paints still take weeks to dry.

I confess I only paint subjects that interest me and those that seem to 'sit happily on a plate'. That expression is hard to define but see if you agree.  Beautiful vegetables and fruits, some picked from my own garden, glistening fish and antique cutlery are first to be captured. These simple still lifes look great on their own or even better in a group. Building a plate-scape is simple as I sell them ready to hang with a brass plated hanger (with protective ends) and a wall fixing, so super quick and easy to attach to your wall. Alternatively, you could place the plate on a special stand. It's fine art on a plate only - don't ever use them for eating or put them in your dishwasher!

Artists throughout history have been drawn to designing plates - strange but true. Even Picasso in the 1940s embraced the art form, creating unique pieces as well a limited edition designs with a local pottery.  In the 1970s Julian Schnabel and Judy Chicago famously harnessed the power of the humble plate to send their eloquent messages. But does this question the traditional hierarchy of the art world - is it subverted?  How delicious.  Does the fine art element diminish - is it of less value because its on a plate - does the association of domesticity devalue it? What do you think?

To find out more about the history of painting on plates click on this link

https://www.artspace.com/magazine/art_101/art_market/artist_designed_tableware-51836

I have spent my life in black and white studying greys. My obsession with colour meant that I needed to extricate it from my career palette in order to draw. To draw in detail, to observe, to edit, to mark and mark again. The employment of colour would confuse my goal, so it was purposefully ignored. When I did introduce colour into my work it was restrained, limited and controlled. Only one colour at a time. Its role was functional - to pop!

Creativity is energising. I'm having fun experimenting with relationships and exploiting the dynamics of colours - always learning and enriching my portfolio. This excitement is nurturing - my curiosity sparked - enquiries into 'what if?'.  I'm not interested in slumber, but being awakened inside to discover new and more. Experimentation means that mistakes are plenty and have be worked through - I expect to go wrong sometimes. It is calling on my depth of experience to find solutions and execute them. The mastery of techniques and materials is a lesson for life, so curiosity is helpful and perseverance too. Getting older helps as one's inner voice reminds one that 'you can do this - keep going'.

Now that I am indulging in paint, I am wallowing in colour - luxuriating in all the millions of nuances and hues.  The joy of creating thick, multi-layered colours, embracing impasto painting with relish, has engineered a sense of freedom unknown before. Yes, my paintings are experiences that envelop the viewer - emotional responses laced with energy. Just as with my drawings, the more you look the more you see, but with paint it is very much a physical event. The quality of the paint assists in the translation of different narratives. The viewing distance alters the experience significantly. The paintings are invitingly tactile with textured surfaces - multiple layers of paint on paint, colour on colour.  The depth is vital, for it resonates the emotion that I am layering and transposing, from vision to canvas.

Colour can be bewitching.  It speaks to us and entices our personal stories to relate to it. Everyone has a favourite colour, that is a colour that resonates with them, shaped by their life and memories. Whilst nurturing this relationship we can enhance our own perception of what we need around us to fuel our moods. Yellow is a prime example of the power of colour. Depending on your innate response to this hue, its impact in its most vibrant form can be seismic, with the potential to lift moods and bring joy. Whilst its darkest tone can be miserable and mysterious. But this is not a rule - colour is amorphous. Ones reaction is guided by the viewer's inner world. So colour is personal and therefore the emotional intelligence behind each painting plays with the power of colour.

My dark paintings are moody with chiaroscuro being a favoured technique to evoke the ever changing balance of the elements. The aim is for them to be dynamically atmospheric by transposing an emotion in response to stormy skies or the depth of midnight. So the energy of the palette is not focussed on being menacing or gloomy, even though some interrupt that message, but rather of embracing the celebration of the interplay of light and dark.

In contrast, the more sunny paintings shout out the sheer joy of being alive in such wonderful places. They are statements luxuriating in colour.

Fields of Wonder

This new collection was created as an exhibition to be launched as part of Holt's Arts Festival 2023. 

BELOW: Inspiration - the wild poppy meadow discovered at Walsingham

BELOW: Inspiration - the wild meadow discovered at Fulmodeston

BELOW: Inspiration - the wild meadow discovered at Swanton Novers

BELOW: Inspiration - the wild meadow discovered at Fulmodeston

BELOW: Inspiration - the meadow discovered at Fakenham

Focus

Scott's aim is to create a painting that is almost a joyful meditation on a piece of land. For this she researches in the field, making preparatory studies, wordscapes and taking photographs.  A low perspective emerges from the submersion, creating purposefully limited sight lines and a narrow focus. This concentration enhances the caress of the plants and their sway in the breeze.

Morning
by Charles Tennyson

It is the fairest sight in Nature’s realms,
To see on summer morning, dewy-sweet,
That very type of freshness, the green wheat,
Surging thro’ shadows of the hedgerow elms;
How the eye revels in the many shapes
And colours which the risen day restores!
How the wind blows the poppy’s scarlet capes
About his urn ! and how the lark upsoars!
Not like the timid corn- craik scudding fast
From his own voice, he with him takes his song
Heavenward, then, striking sideways, shoots along,
Happy as sailor boy that, from the mast,
Runs out upon the yard -arm , till at last
He sinks into his nest, those clover tufts among.

BELOW: Inspiration - the wild meadow discovered at Walsingham

It is always a pleasure when a client decides to commission a painting.  I have spent 40 years of working to commission and enjoy deciphering what is really desired. The subject is of course very important and the style of execution too. Knowing the location in a room always helps, so we can discuss the light and size of the potential work.

 BELOW: The Best of Days painting commission for Ms. W

Commissions vary widely in size and content - a recent one was quite specific, so I was delighted when the client emailed this to me,

"It's beautiful. I love the light on the horizon and the movement in the waves - you have captured exactly what I wanted but was having difficulty articulating."

It is important to have a simple agreement drawn up to make the process straightforward and transparent.

The basic commissioning process

1. We agree a brief, cost and timeline.

2. A non-returnable deposit is required to schedule the work.

3. The canvas and materials are ordered.

4. The painting is researched and executed.

5. The finished work is shown to you for feedback BEFORE it is framed. Any alterations are made. The painting or photo of the revised final picture is shown to you.

6. The picture is then framed. On completion you will be notified and asked to collect it from the gallery and to settle the balance.

 BELOW: Rain Dance 2 commission for Mr & Mrs D.

If you would like to discuss commissioning a piece of art

then please get in touch.

The Agony and the Ecstasy of Oil Painting

A friend recently asked me if I ever get bored painting the coast? My reply came easily - the coastline is always changing, in every second it metamorphoses. Aiming and failing to capture that energy or tranquility is so bewitching that I'll never master it or tire of trying to do so.

Painting the Norfolk Coast

The elements of sky, sea and shore dance and shift continually. It's the movement and the interplay of the elements that is beguiling. Standing before the ocean and absorbing the sights, sounds and smells to carry home to the studio, is both humbling and invigorating. I find making short videos of the panorama can help the journey, but nothing matches the initial excitement of the moment. Doing quick sketches and colour studies are an intrinsic part of the process. The large scale I prefer to work at demands a big set up, so it is highly problematic working on location.

Painting Simple Compositions with Complicated Layers

The compositions are rudimentary - I really like that. Capturing the viewer's eye without an obvious focal point demands other elements of interest and nuance. Colour and texture are key.  The process is dynamic. It makes it even more challenging to carry that simplicity and create a picture that has depth, movement and spirit. The techniques I use embraces this - nurturing the notion of shifting layers. Visualising and then building the layers is a multi-pronged operation where understanding three-dimensions is critical. One is building from the back of the painting and seeing forward - therefore planning is key.

Each element is faceted like colours - their translucency or opaqueness is important to exploit the medium's variables. Subject matter such as skies and seas envelop the multi-layered approach and react well to embracing different strengths of coloured layers.

Emotional Painting

Yes the paintings are emotional expressions, not copies of anything stagnant.  I want them to be transitional - to carry one to another place - to form a ticket to ride. Painting requires concentration and control, and yet however much you master the materials, there is always an element of serendipity that I love. That unexpected joy or horror that emerges when you think it's safe. This duality of agony and ecstasy whilst painting becomes a canvas full of problems to solve and I am elated if I manage to master them. Such an absorbing activity is demanding both mentally and physically, especially when I work on the big panels. The width and longevity of my art practice definitely informs my painting. It has nuances towards sculpture - planning in three dimensions, layering and cutting back.

Moving to North Norfolk

I grew up by the sea and regularly spent hours watching the waves, never thinking that those early memories would guide my focus now. When we moved from Bournemouth to the Lake District I was still needing to regularly visit the coast and share the big skies away from the brooding mountains. Moving to North Norfolk was liberating - it is a special place: a sanctuary and a stimulus for my spirit and my art practice. We had visited for seven years before we decided to move permanently - it was the best thing we ever did.

Materials of My Mother Tongue - Painting with Oil & Wax

Simple imagery with a strong graphic quality draws me in. Rhythmic bands of interest broken with a vertical focal point is visual poetry to my eyes. The striping delineates and dissects the panorama. Whether wide or sinuous - it’s the dynamic of the sections that is exciting. It is the balance and harmony versus the abrasion of colours and textures that is engaging. I see the challenge as an artist, is how to make such basic inspiration intriguing - to translate the joy into something tangible through media. A lifetime of layering different materials to build and excavate has led to multiple approaches. The current fascination with pigment and wax has evolved over many years of experimenting to source a painting medium that embraced all that I needed to execute the energies within. In these natural materials I have found a voice that speaks my mother tongue.

ABOVE:  SERENITY, HOLKHAM BEACH, NORFOLK

Artist's Research

I am seeking to create on the canvas, an almost reincarnation of a fleeting moment that requires an enveloping of the elements at the site. Whether a tranquil haven or a dramatic storm the immersion is aided with research: sketches, colour studies and photographic details. But the process of absorption, reflection and creation is so full of energy and dynamic interactions, between myself and the medium, that I find the best way to record my inspiration is by filming the subject matter. Just by taking video clips, the essence of a place is better transported to my studio, than through stills that freeze the energy I wish to evoke. Whilst, wishing to paint on site seems attractive, my chosen medium is very limited, as intense heat and power are critical.

Artist's Materials & Process

In the studio it is a juggling act of controlling hot and cold - an alchemy of materials and old techniques mixed with new technologies. The materials are natural: pigments and bees wax, mixed with dammar resin to set the strokes. These are brushed, knifed, poured and rubbed onto specially sealed wooden boards, then layered and fused, layered and fused and repeated. The rhythm is broken by incising, texturising and sgraffito. The process is reactive with a strong element of serendipity tempered by intuition. I embrace the challenge and realise it will take more than a lifetime to hone any skill set.

Encaustic Painting

The heated palettes provide softened creamy molten colour in tins waiting to be saturated with pigment or thinned and translucent. Mixing colours and different quantities of wax opens up endless possibilities for saturation and washes. The range of hand tools  employed is vast from fine dental steel implements to large chunky brushes made of wood and natural animal hair.

Wax and pigments are fused with heat, which dries quickly, capturing brush strokes, drips and textures. Encaustic art is an all consuming very physical practice.  One is seduced by the process of not just applying paint with a brush, palette knife or hands but also the harnessing of heat to energise materials and move the liquids around. The fluidity of the process allows the materials to mix and metamorphose.

Encaustic Painting - an Ancient Art

There are examples of this ancient art, practiced by the Greeks and the Egyptians, from 2000 years ago. The British Museum has examples of portraits from 100-300 AD. The Fayum encaustic pictures are still vibrant, providing an amazing historical testament to the longevity of the medium. Painted as part of the mummy casing, the deceased’s portrait was depicted fully dressed with a background around the head. A visit to see these in the flesh is at the top of my list for my next research trip to London.

Drawing Trees

Drawing Trees in Winter

Winter is the best time of year to research new trees to draw. The skeletal forms are mesmerising, whilst often challenging, due to the difficulty in extracting their form from the background. A specimen tree on the horizon with the sun glinting through makes an ideal subject to draw as a silhouette, but nature doesn’t often present this scene. Deciding on the composition usually takes place on site and involves preliminary sketching and the taking of numerous photographs. The images are taken from a distance to set the scene and then closeups for the trunk and branch configuration, plus bark details. Revisiting the location many times is usually necessary to glean particular information - rarely can one study contain everything required to transpose a true picture. The work is intense and detailed and executed in the studio.

The Drawing Technique

The process commences with serious editing, coupled with decisions about which trees to draw in silhouette and those to detail. The drawing technique employs a discipline of restricting the building of the form just to making monotone marks, rather than the employment of colour or shading, leading to a focussed study that is very time consuming to create. The mass of  marks, varying in shape, strength and size, is repeated, then repeated. The approach to drawing is in a similar vein to that of the traditional building process of creating a sculpture with the rhythm of multiple marks both building and extracting until a form evolves from the ground. The technique is paradoxically quick in hand movement yet slow to evolve.

Artist's Research

On a research visit to Felbrigg recently, a pair of old oaks at the front of the Hall stood out as worthy specimens. There was also a wonderful very old chestnut tree asking to have its character recorded before the next storm took another limb. These trees will studied at length then drawn for the Arboretum Collection where they will accompany the sycamore and beech at Felbrigg.

General Information

Jac Scott is multi-award winning artist and a member of the Royal Society of Sculptors. She draws and paints what she loves: trees, wildlife, the countryside and seascapes that she discovers in Norfolk. The detailed drawings are shared as fine art giclée prints in limited and open editions. The artist retains the originals. The prints are made by specialist printers who are members of the Fine Art Trade Guild. A giclée print is a term used to describe a fine art digital printing process combining pigment based inks with high quality archival quality paper to achieve an inkjet print of superior archival quality, light fastness and stability.

Limited Editions of 50 - Special Collections

Signed, catalogued, limited edition of 50, fine art prints are available framed or unframed.

The drawings are giclée printed on Hahnemuhle Photo Rag 310gsm pH neutral paper made from 100% cellulose.

Open Edition Fine Art Prints

   . . 

All open edition prints are printed on Redcliffe Watercolour paper and are available in different sizes and colours - framed or unframed.

 A simple story of a painting.

Sometimes it’s the simple pleasures of living in this beautiful county that bring a lingering smile, such as looking forward to the casual, yet dynamic blooming of the wild poppies in June. The impact can be just a single lost flower or the invasion of a whole field swathed in red.

 But usually it’s a graceful lacing of the field edges - red heads of delicate crepe paper petals bobbing in the breeze.

This June on a winding lane from Edgefield, near Holt, there was a particularly wonderful field of poppies - so inspiring I had to paint the view.

2020 saw the start of a whole new portfolio of paintings for artist Jac Scott.  Fluid Lands emerged through the lockdown as the artist was able to dedicate significant studio time to developing the new work with pigments and wax.  The Storm Collection was the initial response now followed by Linear Lands.

Each work is a unique response to local Norfolk sea and land scapes.

Inspiration - Linear Lands Collection

North Norfolk, with its big skies and undulating vistas, specialises in creating layered wide and sinuous bands of landscape.

There is a rhythmic poetry where the bands of interest stretch across the land forming stripes of colour, texture and form. This striping delineates and dissects the panorama leading to an inspiration that explodes across the canvas - broad strokes of emotion and energy captured in paint.

Technique - Encaustic Painting

The ancient method of encaustic art was practiced by the Greeks and Egyptians with 2000 year old examples still in existence. Wax and pigments are fused with heat which dries quickly capturing brush strokes, drips and textures. Encaustic art is an all consuming very physical practice.  One is seduced by the process of not just applying paint with a brush, palette knife or hands, but also the harnessing of heat to energise materials and move the liquids around. The fluidity of the process allows the materials to mix and metamorphose.

East View, Burnham Overy Staithe, Norfolk

The coastal path elevates the walker to view a wide vista of lines on the landscape where reeds, stream, bank, grass, hedge and sky form natural bands.

Phacelia, Hindolveston, Norfolk

Bands of wonder in a local meadow where phacelia forms a lacy border to rustling wheat, dwarfed by a row of Scots pines.

Phacelia is a wonder plant. It has beautiful scented purple flowers with dense fern-like foliage. It smothers weeds and has an extensive root system that improves soil structure  - it is often used as a green manure. It grows quickly showing blooms for 6-8 weeks - providing an excellent cut flower and one of the top flowers for bees and hoverflies.