Wimbledon Art Studios: more than 100 artists open their studios to the public

From painters and potters to photographers and fashion designers, Wimbledon Art Studios in Riverside Road, near Earlsfield, is home to more than 100 artists.

While its creative inhabitants spend most of the year working in solitude, the studios hosts bi-annual public events, where people can meet the artists in their studios and buy work from them.

Adrienne Byrne

Central Saint Martins graduate Adrienne Byrne has been painting at the studios since 2008.

She says of her current series of land and sea scapes in oils: "It is imagination, it comes from nowhere and is not worked out in advance and decided upon in terms of content or shape of colour - it forms itself, the colours merge and it is allowed to be."

Jeremy Dickinson

Go up a flight of stairs and at the very end of the corridor you'll find a very different sort of painter.

Yorkshireman Jeremy Dickinson has turned his childhood obsession with model sports cars into a source of inspiration for his fun prints of towering motors.

In his spacious studio he has been dilligently preparing for a new exhibition, Ephemera, which opens at the Xippas Gallery in Geneva at the end of the month.

Alex Rennie

Some work was sold for several thousand pounds, including paintings by acclaimed 37-year-old painter Alex Rennie, who has previously displayed his work at the National Portrait Gallery.

The Londoner, who studied at Wimbledon College of Art, says of his recent landscape and contemporary works: "I love London, I'm a Londoner born and bred and I'm interested in history. They [my paintings] have to be quite gritty.

"I use a glowing red to bring all the paintings together. I came up with it a few years ago when I was doing Soho paintings and trying to get that real glow."

Red Totems, he says, represents a crowd of individuals in London: "It's like when you are close together and you are communicating but not really."

Kjell Folkvord

Over in the other building, one of many artists who stands out is Norwegian painter Kjell Folkvord, who describes himself as a "lyrical abstract impressionist".

He says of his work: "My paintings are usually colourful. The colours are the letters in my painting's language. They are syllables more than they represent reality in the world.

"I usually try to tell a story, and the image I have in my mind or memory, in my emotional layers."

One of his latest paintings is based on Mozart's ninth sympthony. "The piece of music is about joy, and I hope the painting brings out some joy."

Nesting boxes, by Bridget Macklin

It's not all about painting. Ceramicist Bridget Macklin is among a number of multimedia artists.

The ceramicist, who is interested in art psychotherapy, says: "I am fascinated by layers: not only the natural layers in the geology of our landscape or the rings in trees but also the protective layers which we construct around ourselves in response to the injuries we collect on life's journey."

Derek Smith, Wimbledon Art Studios co-ordinator, said he estimated that more than £100,000 worth of paintings were sold over the four-day event, which ended on Sunday.

The Open Studios was the first to feature food vans selling fish-finger baps, live music and a fashion show - indicating a shift towards a more versatile event under co-ordinator Julie Proctor.

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