Karen McEndoo, Aidan Hicks, Rod Walker, Kinsley Byrne

Karen McEndoo

Karen McEndoo is an abstract artist based in Cornwall, working in oils and acrylics with an expressive, gestural approach. Her practice draws inspiration from the dramatic Cornish landscape and the legacy of the St Ives modernists, whilst also reflecting the vivid colours and light of Central Africa, where she spent her formative years.

Originally trained as an illustrator, McEndoo has developed a distinctive abstract language over fifteen years of professional practice. Her work explores the intersection of memory, place and emotional response through bold mark-making and considered colour relationships.
McEndoo is a full member of the Penwith Gallery and a member of the South West Academy of Fine and Applied Arts. She has exhibited extensively across southern England, with her work held in private collections nationally and internationally.

‘Bleary forms abut sharp blocks of colour generating a sense of movement; a dancing shift in focus. At first seemingly restful McEndoo’s work is imbued with a taut energy’

– Emma Leaper

Aidan Hicks was born in Penzance in 1966; he went on to study architecture and design but returned to his west Cornwall family farm in 1991. Drawing and painting has remained an incessant hobby and a several years ago, wanting three-dimensional expression, he began to experiment with sculpture. He likes to use all sorts of stone, even concrete, but has found that the richly textured and mineralised granite he sources from his farm has a very special appeal. He finds it very satisfying to take rock from earth that has both a personal and long family association and then re-form it into sculpture.
This taking of the stone from the earth also fits with many of his inspirations for his work. He has always been interested in the relationship people have had with stone in their environment, in archaeology and ancient and mediaeval sculpture. The ambiguities introduced to an antique object through weathering, together with the inevitable erosion of original meaning over time, is also something he thinks about when shaping his stones.

Rod Walker

“My paintings are figurative; their roots and inspirations are to be found in the world around me. I try not to copy reality but rather establish a relationship with it – altering and manipulating the colours, shapes and meanings to allow for a more personal understanding of the image. Materials are important in my work. I like to draw, especially from the human form and from any subjects I find interesting. My concerns are many and varied. I simply attempt to produce the works which seem most relevant to me at the time.”

Kinsley Byrne

“My work explores the making of furniture and symbolic artifacts through direct carving in wood and by modelling in plaster for bronze editions.

Born in Yorkshire, I studied furniture making at Leeds College of Art and Design, with placements at Ecole Boulle in Paris. I worked as a cabinet maker for David Linley and after a period of working on wooden boats and restoring and sailing my own gaff rigged cutter, I settled in Cornwall and continue to develop ideas in Art, Craft and Design.”