Rochester Art Fair is a new and exciting event providing art lovers, art collectors and the local community based in Kent, Surrey, Sussex, London and the surrounding areas, with the opportunity to browse and buy beautiful, original artwork and interact directly with artists from across the UK and Europe.
Set against the lavish backdrop of the 18th Century Rochester Corn Exchange in the historic town of Rochester, Kent. The Fair showcases a wide variety of visual art including 2D and 3D works, created by both established and emerging artists.
All Curator
Private View Friday 6th October 2023
5 - 9pm
Saturday 7th October 2023
10am - 6pm
Sunday 8th October 2023
10am-5pm
Nick Cobb is an artist working with experimental photography techniques and constructing large scale installations.
Nicholas Cobb is a Kent-based artist working with photography, digital art and constructions. He has also curated exhibitions and was part of a team that organised the Nunhead Art Trail.
For 20 years he taught photography, Photoshop and various fine art courses at Putney School of Art.
With photography he takes an experimental approach, mostly using a distorting mirror to find a more subjective and uncontrolled result in the mirror’s reflection.
Much of his imagery concerns the environment. In 2019 he spent time at the rewilding project at Knepp farm photographing the flora and recording the sounds in the woods and fields. These were then collaged together in the ‘Field Works’ series.
In the face of environmental destruction of habitat he looks for the positive narratives.
Most recently he has taken his unusual approach to photography to a field and parts of Blean Woods on the Canterbury Road, between Herne and Sturry.
Over the course of 2023 he has joined group exhibitions in Beach Creative’s Gallery and his own garage/studio gallery- part of East Kent Artist Open House- in Herne Bay.
In his studio he pieces together elaborate constructions in card that reflect on our experience of climate change. Some of these have been exhibited as part of community actions in the face of controversial development.
Another side to photography is his interest in the landscapes of some of Modernism’s great artist’s.
He has photographed at Giverny – Monet’s garden, the area around Aix-en-Provance where Cezanne painted, the town of Ceret where Soutine worked and currently , the art of Alan Reynolds in Kent.
Recent group shows:
Garage Gallery Show, East Kent Artist Open House, Herne Bay 2023
7 Walls, Beach Creative, Herne Bay, 2023
Peckham Festival, Copeland Gallery, 2021
ICP Concerned, Curated by David Campany. International Centre of Photography, New York USA 2020
Creekside Open, [photographs] Deptford. Curated by Sacha Craddock London 2019
Curated shows:
Our Local Landscape, Group show as part of Nunhead Art Trail, Aquarius Golf Clubhouse, London 2019
Homage to Bees. Group show as part of Dulwich Festival 264 and 274 Upland Rd. London 2019
Paula MacArthur is a painter, working from her studio in Rye, on the South Coast of England. Since 2010 her work has focussed on precious stones, she says, “For me, crystals encapsulate love, life, the universe and perhaps even everything! My paintings are explorations of colour and light. They are a contemporary response to Dutch 17th ostentatious still lifes through which I hope to provide a moment to pause and consider the beauty and transience of life. The otherworldliness of these glassy, geometric forms sparks infinite imaginings in me; I find an equivalent magic in oil paint and use luminous colour to create intricate, crystalline landscapes and new, unreachable worlds. These are metaphors for the fragility of the planet we inhabit, the human condition, but also a recognition of the potential joy in the here and now.”
Paula regularly exhibits internationally and recent exhibitions include ‘At Cross Purposes’ touring to four venues Wales and Northern Ireland (until 23.12.23), ‘Arcadia for all? Rethinking Landscape Painting Now’ at the University of Leeds and touring to Attenborough Arts Centre, Leicester (until 28.1.24, ‘Paint Fiction’ International Gallery of Contemporary Art, Anchorage, USA and ‘Of Lightness’ at Blyth Gallery, Imperial College, London.
Paula was a prizewinner at John Moores Painting Prize in 1993 and other career highlights include ‘In the Future’ curated by Rosalind Davis at Collyer Bristow Gallery, ‘Made in Britain’ at the National Gallery in Gdańsk, Poland, ‘Contemporary Masters from Britain’ which toured four museums in China and ‘Slippery & Amorphous’ which toured to London & Brooklyn. Her work is held in private and public collections around the world.
Alongside her painting practice, Paula is a Programme Tutor on the BA Painting course at OCA and is a mentor for the Turps Hastings Offsite Programme. She has been a member of the artist-led group Contemporary British Painting since 2016, holding the post of Chair from 2019-2023 and since 2019 has coordinated the Contemporary British Painting Prize.
Curators. Artists. Gallerists.
Beton (Croatian, Polish) means concrete as in the building material. Beton is strong, resistant, durable, and combines all four elements: water, air, fire, and earth. Beton Collective draws from these qualities in their approach to both artistic and curatorial work.