Pop up exhibition: Wendy Jenkins and Christine Pemberton

ArtHouse Jersey welcomes the latest in their pop up art exhibition series, this time a joint show with artists Wendy Jenkins and Christine Pemberton.

People are invited to Greve de Lecq Barracks on Saturday 9 and Sunday 10 March 2024 between 10am and 5pm where the artists will be present to greet visitors and talk about their work and processes.

Wendy Jenkins has recently been exploring both the vibrancy and fragility of life through natural forms, particularly flowers, thinking about the passing of time and our relationship to it. She is a self-taught painter and a therapeutic arts practitioner with a local charity. She enjoys painting ‘miracles in the mundanity’ – seeing the beauty in the ordinary and the everyday.

Christine Pemberton considers herself to be an abstract expressionist painter, while still working figuratively, sometimes deconstructing, making semi-abstract landscapes and life studies. Her paintings feature gestural mark-making, bringing energy and movement. She is driven by the balance of composition and the colour-palette as well as the surface and texture.

Artist Wendy Jenkins said: “Having an opportunity to exhibit my work for the first time with ArtHouse Jersey is a real thrill. My exhibition is entitled ‘A Time for Everything’ which has been inspired by a poem in the Bible that begins with the boundaries of life – the beginning and the end – and speaks of the inevitable joys and sorrows weaved into every life.

“Preparing the work has been deeply enriching but confronting as I’ve taken risks both artistically and personally. Giving  birth to four children was a natural place to explore a line from the poem ‘A Time To Be Born’ and having multiple elective surgeries to reduce my risk of breast cancer was a vulnerable but meaningful place to consider ‘A Time To Tear and A Time To Sew.’ As I continue to establish myself as a painter, I am learning the importance of connecting my inner world with my paintbrush. I’ve used mainly Acryl Gouache – I like it because it’s a brilliantly versatile, opaque medium with a lovely fluidity. It dries quickly too which is helpful when I’m building up layers!”

Artist Christine Pemberton is a retired primary school teacher and now has more time to dedicate to painting. She completed the Highlands college art degree in 2006 where she took the opportunity of working in 3d and currently works on mainly large canvases combining oils, print, inks, print and collage, towards a multi-layered surface.

Although still occasionally working figuratively, she has an impulsive and gestural response, enjoying deconstructing and simplifying the composition, editing until the elusive resolution is found! Of the upcoming show she said: “My work is entitled ‘Here and Now’ and is based on a six week period this January and February taking Greve de Lecq walks and snapshots for inspiration. In this exhibition I hope to share the reality translates to abstraction.”

Main image: By Wendy Jenkins as part of exhibition ‘A Time for Everything’.