To coincide with Kingston Artists Open Studios 2026, the Stanley Picker Gallery will host a six-day exhibition in our Project Studio featuring works selected through an open call. Titled Open Waters, the exhibition explores our relationship to water. The works span print, installation, painting, collage, photography, drawing and etching, engaging with childhood memories, local histories, reflections on water, and material investigation. These works by local artists bring our connections to rivers, seas, oceans, waterways, and swimming into the gallery.
The exhibition will coincide with A Simultaneous Agreement a major presentation by Stanley Picker Fellows FRAUD. The exhibition includes a wide selection of works from local artists, students and gallery partners.
We are hosting a Stanley Picker Gallery Late night celebration which is an opportunity for everyone to meet the artists, celebrate Kingston Artists Open Studios, experience both exhibitions after hours and to see the fountain running with Hogsmill River water for the first time.
Join us from 6-8pm Friday 15 May for Open Waters Late.
Artists include: Olga Bonitas, Ruth Bowey, Caroline Calascione, Jane Cradock-Watson, Leo Duff, Gerald Eccles, Maia Friedrich, Diane Gerrard, James Kaye Harris, Buffy Kimm, Bergina Leka, Emily Limna, FionaMasterton, Jillian McLaren, Ross McLeod, Loraine Monk, Roy West, Lyndsay Russell, Donna Shannon, Nicola Siebert-Patel, Sue Slaughter, Paul Smith, Kate Strupinski, Felicity Swan, Irina Taneva, Hanna Ten Doornkaat, Valerie Timmis, Richard Tomlin, Anna Topalova, Henne Turner, Jude Wild, Frank Wuggenig.
Biography
Olga Bonitas is an award-winning watercolour artist exploring themes of femininity, womanhood, and nature. A former biotechnology engineer, she began illustrating as a side project after her first child, gradually becoming a Top Teacher on Skillshare and international book illustrator. Relocating to the UK in 2023 via Global Talent visa, she is now active in Kingston Open Studios and exhibitions like RI 213th (2025) and International Watercolour Masters 2026.
Ruth Bowey has lived in Kingston beside the Thames for many years and draws much of her inspiration from local wild spaces and the Thames path. Her paintings capture quiet, meditative moments, letting the plants and paint guide the work as she explores the fleeting beauty of nature and memory.
Caroline Calascione originally trained as a typographer and graphic designer. After a design career she graduated from Kingston University with a Masters in Drawing as Process and since then has been developing her practice as a painter. Her main interest is in colour, where context is everything.
Jane Cradock-Watson works with artists books and printmaking. Her work is focussed on the relationship between nature, landscape and the human condition. Her work explores the development of narratives through the textural potential of printmaking, the surface qualities of papers and the handling properties of artists books.
Leo Duff works across themes in our build environment and what is left behind as people move on.
Gerald Eccles OBE is a full-time contemporary landscape artist living and working in Surbiton, Surrey. Born in 1965 he grew up in Lytham Lancashire where he first experienced the wild rhythms of the sea and ever changing light. By producing artwork Gerald hopes it will give people a chance to connect with the landscape and respect nature that is so wild around us.
Maia Friedrich has a natural affinity for the natural world. In my practice, I bring together nature and art – an impression or simulation of our reality. My work allows me to delve deeper into things, thoughts or ideas which are normally missed – silently having a dialogue beyond language with the subject.
Diane Gerrard works in oil and water based paint and has exhibited in a range of UK exhibitions and competitions.
James Kaye Harris is a self-taught artist, who was born in London in 1951. He paints in a studio in Kingston upon Thames.
Buffy Kimm is a printmaker and mixed media artist who studied at Kingston Polytechnic in the 1970’s and from there worked in the theatre and in television as a production designer. She then taught production Design for Film and television at Kingston University. After retiring twelve years ago, she started experimenting with printmaking and with paper and found materials, finding inspiration through photography, particularly abstract detail in architecture, natural forms and textures.
Bergina Leka works in photography to communicate ideas, desires, fears, worries as emotions which are essential to creativity, pouring them into artistic outlets. By making art, she is exploring her own story and experiences, making meaning of them, achieving some catharsis, and inspiring or comforting others.
Emily Limna is a local artist, printmaker and teacher inspired by botanical forms, wildlife and pattern. Silkscreens are exposed from hand drawn illustrations. Multiple layers are overprinted with each outcome holding their own, individual qualities. Recently intrigued by the way flora and fauna relate within our green spaces, linocut prints and illustrations have been developed to highlight our native wildlife hidden amongst riverbanks.
Fiona Masterton’s art practice combines photography, collage, painting and writing. She is interested in philosophical ideas surrounding the fragment and its connection and relevance to modernity. She try to convey a sense of flux, of a perpetual ebb and flow between the abstract and the figurative, reality and the imagination to create numerous
Jillian McLaren holds a BA in Fine Arts (Painting) from WSCAD (now UCA) Farnham, Surrey, she is was an Associate Member of Penwith Society of Arts.She has participated in group shows including Catalyst Women in Art & Science, Portsmouth; Borderlands Artists’ Consortium, Hampshire; The Gap Group of Artists, Guildford; Senegal; France; Creative Response, Farnham, Surrey; KAOS, Kingston. She has work in collections in UK, Europe and Australia.
Ross McLeod is an analogue social documentary photographer, exploring themes of reconnection, place, and brotherhood within my photographic practice. Alongside this main practice, he engages and experiments with alternative analogue processes and more conceptual work, such as my Untitled Triptych.
Loraine Monk is a London artist previously a painter, now printmaker. She uses both etching and woodcut techniques. Her working-class family have influenced her politics, academic research and artistic practice. She has shown in a number of independent Galleries, group shows and museums. Themes include inequality, feminism and the environment.
Lyndsay Russell is an MFA graduate in Fine Art from KSA, Lyndsay has had work exhibited in the Saatchi Gallery, West Bund in China and Kingston Museum. Inspired by the surroundings of her Thames houseboat her practice is heavily inspired by the waters and nature that surround her home.
Donna Shannon is an artist living and working in London, England. Her paintings are concerned with capturing elusive moments found in local environments and architecture; inspired by the intrinsic dynamic of utopian dreams and reality. Donna holds a Bachelor of Arts degree, and her work is included in many private collections.
Nicola Siebert-Patel is a British/South African artist based in London. Nicola’s practice is paint based, mainly using oils on various mediums. This could be canvas, wood or metal. Nicola undertook her MFA at Wimbledon College of Art and is currently part of the Turps Banana mentors programme.
Sue Slaughter begun her career as a textile designer, Sue is a fine artist now, working in many media including oils and watercolours. Land and seascapes are starting points for her work. Colour plays a major role in inspiring her creativity. Her paintings range from impressionistic to abstract in style.
Paul Smith is a London based artist from Sunderland. His work is predominantly narrative abstract painting and collage exploring an interest in what is lost from memory and how that loss is “synthesized as trace in the landscape”. Paul has exhibited widely in the UK, most recently solo exhibitions ‘Uncertain Promises: The Unofficial George Eliot Countryside’ at One Paved Court, Richmond and ‘Are You Leaving for the Country?’ at Muse Gallery, Portobello Road, London.
Felicity Swan is originally from New Zealand and lives in London. She is a painter whose work hovers between the abstract and figurative. She has works in private collections in Australia, Europe, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.
Kate Strupinski is an artist and illustrator with an MA from Central Saint Martins. She creates mixed-media works, layering paint, drawing, print and found materials to evoke memory, emotion and personal responses, blending abstract and recognisable imagery. She exhibits work in galleries and art spaces across London.
Irina Taneva is an internationally renowned Fine Art painter and teacher, based in Kingston. Irina, Master of Art, BA (hons) in Teaching art and BA (hons) in Fashion design, has studied in CSM, London, and in the National Academy of Arts, Sofia. Her works are collectable and can be found worldwide in museums and private collections.
Hanna ten Doornkaat studied BA (sculpture) at Kingston University (1996) and MA (sculpture) at Wimbledon School of Art (UAL) (2003). She has exhibited in the UK, and internationally and has curated major exhibitions for many years. She is the co-founder and curator of White Noise Projects.
Valerie Timmis is a Kingston Artist and during the last ten years I have developed my practice with a focus on textiles and painting. Japanese processes and symbolism are a major part of my work using manipulation and memory to make pattern and shape with the river (Kawa) a metaphor for life’s journey.
Richard Tomlin trained as a graphic designer and subsequently ran a design group. Inspired by the Lucian Freud retrospective a decade ago he decided to take up painting again, His work focuses on drawing and painting people and portraits from life, in his studio at ASC Kingston.
Anna Topalova is a Bulgarian-born painter based in Kingston upon Thames, United Kingdom. Her artistic practice centres on expressive acrylic painting, exploring human emotions, relationships, and personal experiences through vibrant colour and layered compositions.
Henny Turner is an activist and poet
Roy West is a London based contemporary abstract artist using expressive compositions in oils, acrylics, and mixed media. They have a passion for colour and texture and their biggest inspiration is the sky and sea.
Jude Wild studied stage design at Birmingham College of Art and worked at various theatres around the UK designing both costumes and sets. Subsequently she set up her own clothing label supplying retailers worldwide. During these years her passion for painting and drawing continued and when the chance arose she decided to refresh her skills by taking a drawing and painting course at The Slade School of Fine Art and doing a Post Grad Certificate in Art History at Birkbeck, University of London. She exhibits regularly in London and has works in private collections in the UK, USA, Australia and Spain.
Frank Wuggenig is a ceramic artist and designer working with sculptures and 3D wall art who experiments with surface textures and reliefs to instil humour in his work.
