New show Abstract Japan opens at the Mandell's Gallery

Local artists Brigette Hague and Pat Southwood are exhibiting together for the first time at The Mandell's Gallery in Norwich, with their new show Abstract Japan.

New work, featuring printmaking, collage, painting and ceramics, inspired by their recent joint trips to Japan, will fill the walls of the gallery as the nation looks to Japan during the Japan-UK Season of Culture to honour the Olympics.

Potter Pat Southwood has been taking inspiration and learning from the Japanese culture and ceramic techniques for most of her career, integrated in the form and style of her ceramic pieces.

The surface patterns and textures of the pots made for the show are an abstraction of photographs taken in Kyoto and Tokyo and created with tools collected on the trip, she says: "bringing back memories and feelings and being able to express them in clay".

Southwood's passion for her work stems from "the Japanese way of working, the freedom of expression, the direction connection to nature through clay". 

Brigette Hague, recently chair of the Norwich Twenty Group, produces abstract pieces based on spirit and feeling. She is a well established local artist whose work is exhibited globally.

The works in the exhibition are created from the same trip, and are "things which made me have an emotional reaction to them, taking you on a sensory journey."

Abstract Japan runs 4 September - 25 September at The Mandell's Gallery on Elm Hill, open Monday - Saturday, 10 -5. All work displayed is for sale.