Bea and the art of losing yourself “down a paint brush” - Selsey exhibition

You can see the results when she stages a solo exhibition in Wilf’s Yard, High Street, Selsey on Thursday, August 4; Friday, August 5; and Saturday, August 6 from 9.30am to 4.30pm each day

“50 per of my takings will go to the hospice at Selsey. The hospice has touched so many lives.

“It's my first exhibition for two or three years. I did one at the Methodist Church in Selsey before lockdown. I'll be showing framed pictures and unframed pictures and I'm calling it FAB, fine art on a budget. I try not to take myself too seriously!

“The paintings are Selsey and Scotland and a few bits and pieces, basically things I have done since I retired from the law. The paintings go back about ten years.

“I was born in St Andrews but we moved to Edinburgh when I was a couple of months old and I didn't manage to leave until I was in my 30s when I went off to teach at Las Palmas in an international school. I wasn't really painting, but working with children was always artistically creative and they were inspiring. Later I did the Arabic school in Portchester. Vosper Thornycroft were building ships for the Saudi navy and the Kuwaiti n avy and they brought the children over because they are very family conscious. They tried the regular schools but they didn't really get on and so they started an Arabic school for the children in the old personnel office at Vosper Thornycroft.

“I did a law degree and I did that as well as teaching. I was a legal executive, but I also ran a life group for painting in Chichester for 15 years.

“Art has always been there. When I was sitting behind the barrister in court, I used to spend most of my time drawing and then the barrister turned around and would say ‘Have you got exhibit 3?’ and I would be ‘Oh my gosh, where is it?’ I think with me it's just really a question of needing to paint. Painting is self-expression which is a cliched thing to say but really I just love losing myself down a paint brush. I can lose myself for hours!”

Meanwhile, Chichester Cathedral is hosting a major exhibition with members of the Royal Society of Sculptors, until September 6.

Together We Rise comprises over 26 artworks which will be presented within the 940-year old living place of worship and across its grounds. The pieces respond to the artists’ “experience of the pandemic, their resilience, sense of community and collective hope for the future.”

The artists are: Tabatha Andrews, Barbara Beyer, Philip Booth, Judy Boyt, Karen Browning, Fiona Campbell, Dallas Collins, Alice Cunningham, Deborah Duffin, Anna Gillespie, Richard Goldsmith, Simon Hitchens, Jane Jobling, William Lasdun, Ian Marlow, Kate McDonnell, Seamus Moran, Rosie Musgrave, Rebecca Newnham, Kate Parsons, Colin Reid, Mark Richards, Roger Stephens, Jo Taylor, Patricia Volk and David Worthington.