ST IVES SOCIETY OF ARTISTS - Key Persons
Amanda joined the Society in September 2022 as Gallery Manager. With a law degree from the University of York, Amanda worked in finance in Oxfordshire before moving to St Ives in 2020 to join the School of Painting team working in Marketing, HR and Finance.
Job Titles:
- GALLERY ASSISTANT & SOCIAL MEDIA COORDINATOR
Clare joined the Society in November 2024. She graduated from The University of Edinburgh with an MA in History of Art and Painting in July 2024, before relocating to Cornwall. Clare is also a autobiographical figurative oil painter whose work focuses on interpersonal relationships, candid body language, and the feminist gaze.
Hilary Jean Gibson graduated from St Martins School of Art in London in 1979 with a BA (Hons) in Graphic Design. During the 1980s and 1990s she worked as a freelance illustrator in editorial and advertising. She moved from Essex to Brighton in 1980, taking an Art Teacher's Certificate in Education at Sussex University. She has been an art tutor for the Field Studies Council since 1998. In 1994 she obtained a Certificate in Printmaking from Brighton University. She has worked with Tate St Ives since 1995, delivering talks, tours and practical workshops.
Gibson moved to Cornwall in 1994, and completed an MA in the History of Modern Art & Design at University College Falmouth three years later. This was followed by an MA in Illustration : Authorial Practice (2010). As part of the course, she self-published a book about Godolphin National Trust near Helston.
Her work has been included in the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition on two occasions, and at the Mall Galleries as an associate member of the Federation of British Artists, National Society of Painters, Printmakers & Sculptors. She was commissioned by ‘Artists and Illustrators' magazine to write a piece about JMW Turner. In 2017 she undertook a commission for the National Trust involving six large artworks, to be hung in the house at Trelissick Gardens.
She became a member of STISA in 2023.
She lives in Hayle and has been a tutor at the St Ives School of Painting since 1995. She welcomes illustration commissions.
Job Titles:
- Artist, Director, Painter
Jenny Shaw-Browne is a St Ives based painter who uses her degree in Archeology and Ancient History to capture landscapes, cityscapes and landmarks. Her interest in archaeological illustration and artefact drawing translates into vibrant and captivating oil paintings.
In 2025, Jenny was created a director and Honorary Secretary on the St Ives Society of Artists board.
Job Titles:
- Chairman
- Director
- Chairman and Honorary Member
John Watson has been the esteemed Chairman and Honorary Member of the St Ives Society of Artists for over a decade.
John is a collector of artists who attended the Camberwell School of Arts & Crafts in South East London, an interest sparked after living in the capital for 17 years. November 2015 saw the Society & Belgrave St Ives hold a unique exhibition, showcasing Camberwell painters from 1945-85. He also collects works by past & present members of the Society. He is a local schoolteacher, teaching English for nearly thirty years.
Job Titles:
- Artist, Director, Sculptor
Laurent Sykes was born in 1972.
Working as a builder and carpenter around Cornwall, Laurent is constantly inspired by objects he finds around building sites. From offcuts of wood, concrete and items others would regard as junk, he sees shape, form and beauty in each piece.
A strong theme running through Laurent's work is the image of skulls. From a young age, he has been drawn to the cyclical process of life and uses his art practice to explore the subversion of death through the means of decorating and incorporating skulls into his sculptural pieces.
Job Titles:
- Director
- Artist
- Artist, Director, Painter
Lynette was born in Sutton Coldfield. She began visiting St Ives in 1980 and in 1990 finally moved here.
Lynette has been a member and director of the St Ives Society of Artists for many years since moving from Sutton Coldfield more than 25 years ago to St Ives.
Her unique paintings are textured abstracts that are painted in acrylic/oil mixed media.
Working in her Penwith studio most days intuition plays a big part in Lynette's work as she absorbs the colours and textures of her coastal surroundings.
Job Titles:
- GALLERY ASSISTANT
- Artist
- Artist, Director, Painter
Marie Keeling has been a St Ives-based artist for over 20 years and serves as a director and our Treasurer at the Society.
Marie is a local artist and Member of the St Ives Society. Originally from Manchester, she moved to St Ives over 20 years ago and has helped historic organisations all over the town, including the Print Works on Back Road East and the St Ives Arts Club.
Mike Newton was born in Manchester in 1954.
He has a BSc (Hons.) Mathematics and a BA (Hons.) Fine Art.
In 2006 he was awarded an MA Fine Art Painting (Distinction) and a PhD in Fine Art Painting at Bath Spa University in 2013. His doctoral thesis was "Mark Making and Melancholia in Painting".
He has had solo shows at Jerwood Gallery Café 2006, The Brick Lane Gallery London 2006, Nettie Horn, Vyner Street London 2007, Porthmeor Studios 2017 and been included in exhibitions at the Boundary Gallery London 2005 and 2007, Sherbourne House Dorset 2006, John Jones London 2007, Oriel Mostyn Gallery Llandudno 2007, bo-lee Gallery Bath 2010 and 2011, Salisbury Art Centre 2014, World of Glass, St Helens 2015, OXO Tower, London 2016, Wells Art Contemporary 2016, Porthmeor Studios 2017/18/19/22/23/24, Penwith Gallery, St Ives 2017/18, Yellow Door Gallery, Brooklyn New York 2018 and has had paintings selected for the Newlyn Society of Artists' exhibitions in the Tremenheere Gallery in 2019/20/21/22/23/24.
He was awarded a regional prize in the National Open Art Competition in Chichester in 2010 and long listed for the John Moores Painting Prize in 2012.
In a world where we consume and discard images with little pause for thought, the slow process of painting is the perfect antidote. I like to paint historical figures as I am not interested in competing with the camera for contemporary portraiture. I enjoy working in series which gives me scope to learn about those who lived before us and understand how their work fits into the timeline of history. This could be interpreted as nostalgia, but I see it as a meditation on mortality and life's transience. I get a bittersweet pleasure from looking back in this way.
I start by researching my chosen subject and then working from appropriated images I paint a number of experimental studies. I use these to create distance from the source image when I paint my version of the portrait. I like to focus on one particular line from their written work as I paint and aim to rebuild their aura, brushstroke by brushstroke, making them ‘alive' again through depth, colour, texture and light.
Peter Giles is an abstract artist, who moved from Milton Keynes to St Ives Cornwall in 2010. He became a Director of the St Ives Society of Artists in 2022.
After working for 15 years in adult education, Peter co-founded the Barnoon Workshops in St Ives with his wife Zoe Eaton. The main body of his work is abstract drawing using small marks to build the image. Peter sets out rules at the start of each piece and follow until it is finished.
He works mainly on paper and on ‘found' or recycled wood and many other materials.
Job Titles:
- Fellow of the Royal Society of Painter - Printmakers
Peter Wray was trained as a painter, extending his practice into printmaking in the early 1970s, after being exposed to the richness and unique expressive power of the intaglio surface.
Wray is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers. He has exhibited widely throughout Britain and abroad, and his work is held in several prestigious private, public and corporate collections.
Peter Wray is an innovative printmaker with a considerable international reputation as an artist-printmaker. He is one of the UK's foremost exponents of collagraph/carborundum printing. In 2009, together with his partner and fellow artist Judy COLLINS, he moved from York to Penzance, re-locating ‘Handprint Studio' to Trewidden Gardens. He has 35 years' experience as a teacher.
Zoe Eaton was born in London, and is now living in St. Ives, Cornwall. Zoe studied fine art/ painting at UCN Northampton and is a member of the St Ives Society of Artists, and Co-founder of Barnoon Arts. Zoe has been teaching art for over 20 years in adult education, and community art projects.
Her abstract paintings with fresh quirky forms and bold colour combinations are created with oil paint on canvas - that fundamentally explore the language of colour, the physicality of materials and process of painting itself. Zoe became a Director at the Society in 2022.