Hadleigh Gallery dates & times of opening : 13th -21st June 10-4pm
COME MEET THE ARTISTS:
Hadleigh Gallery
Saturday 13th:
| 10-12pm | 12-2pm | 2-4pm |
| Gill Whitehead | Gill Whitehead | Gill Whitehead |
| Annabel Barry | Natasha Davis | Natasha Davis |
| Rebecca Coleman | Helen Mortlock de Gil | |
| Nicola Upton | ||
| Estelle Westlake |
Sunday 14th:
| 10-12pm | 12-2pm | 2-4pm |
| Rebecca Coleman | Barbra Naylor | Barbra Naylor |
| Natasha Davis | Natasha Davis | Gill Whitehead |
| Helen Mortlock de Gil |
Monday 15th:
| 10-12pm | 12-2pm | 2-4pm |
| Nicola Osborne | Helen Mortlock de Gil | Estelle Westlake |
Tuesday 16th:
| 10-12pm | 12-2pm | 2-4pm |
| Gill Whitehead | Nicola Upton |
Wednesday 17th:
| 10-12pm | 12-2pm | 2-4pm |
| Estelle Westlake |
Thursday 18th:
| 10-12pm | 12-2pm | 2-4pm |
| Gill Whitehead | Nicola Upton | |
| Estelle Westlake |
Friday 19th:
| 10-12pm | 12-2pm | 2-4pm |
| Barbra Naylor | Barbra Naylor | |
| Gill Whitehead | Gill Whitehead | |
| Helen Mortlock de Gil |
Saturday 20th:
| 10-12pm | 12-2pm | 2-4pm |
| Rebecca Coleman | Helen Mortlock de Gil | |
| Natasha Davis | ||
| Estelle Westlake |
Sunday 21st:
| 10-12pm | 12-2pm | 2-4pm |
| Barbra Naylor | Barbra Naylor | Nicola Upton |
| Rebecca Coleman | Helen Mortlock de Gil | |
| Natasha Davis | Natasha Davis |
Rebecca Coleman
Rebecca is an abstract and geometric artist working from her home studio in Leigh-on-Sea. Her work explores colour, pattern, and balance through flat colour and carefully structured forms. Rebecca is drawn to clarity and precision, refining each piece until it feels resolved and intentional. She loves the quiet focus that comes with building a composition and creating work that invites people to slow down and really look.
Natasha Davis
Natasha is a self-taught printmaker, based in Essex. She started at the kitchen table during the pandemic and printmaking has become a part of her everyday life ever since.
Through her prints, she hopes to capture people’s imagination. She loves weaving storytelling elements into her pieces, shaped by her background as a creative writing grad, and she tries to let those narrative threads guide each piece.
Helen Mortlock de Gil
Helen taught art in high schools for over 30 years in the UK,
Hong Kong and Venezuela.
She is a founding member of AVA, the Venezuelan water colour association, a member of the Southend art club and go out sketching with the Southend Plein Air Painters. She paints in water colours and sketches using a variety of materials, though water colour features heavily and is the basis for all her work.
Barbra Naylor
Barbra is a self-taught artist currently living in Basildon, Essex. She mainly works in acrylics but also enjoys experimenting with oils.
Barbra loves to create portraits, mainly inspired by her lifelong passion for music. Other works are based on her love of the coast and the everchanging skies, and her most recent paintings are the result of her exploration of modernist techniques.
Her influences are the Impressionist painters, David Hockney, Picasso and Andy Warhol.
Barbra has exhibited at the Royal Academy Summer exhibition and the Now Gallery in London, as well as in many galleries around Essex. She has been part of The Brentwood Art Trail since 2024
Michael Upton
Michael Upton is an educator and artist. Head of Teaching and Learning Development at London Metropolitan University, he has taught on courses including BA Film and Television Production and is a member of the Centre for Creative Arts, Cultures and Engagement (CREATURE). His writing includes chapters for Archive: Imagining The East End (Black Dog Press, 2013) and Uncertain States journal. Between 2012-18 he ran the galleries at London Met’s art school, programming or curating many exhibitions. Estuary English, a collaboration with photographer David George won the NCM/Foyle Commission in 2015. His own practice combines walking, running, and swimming with photography and moving image. His work has recently been exhibited in Making Matters 4.0 (2025), Without Boundaries (2025) at the 61st Essex Open (2025), and was included in the inaugural The Journal of Discarded Daydreams from Newcastle University (2024). In spring 2025, he curated Into The Zone: Journeys in the Thames Estuary at Southend’s Beecroft Art Gallery and his short film ‘Delivering Coffins’ won an Estuary Festival 2025 Commission.
Nicola Upton
Nicola Upton is a glass & mosaic artist based in Leigh-on-Sea;
She studied a degree in 3D glass design back in the 90’s and uses her knowledge and experience to create work encompassing kiln-fused glass, stained glass, traditional mosaic and mixed media pieces incorporating glass. Her creative practice looks at our natural ageing process, she thinks about a future when she may no longer walk with ease along the coast. Her work reflects on these endings, drawing from the shoreline’s moods, textures, and light. Using colour and materials, she explores the resilience of these landscapes and our eventual return to the earth.
She feels blessed to live close to the coast in the little fishing town of Leigh on Sea, Essex. She works in a snug log cabin studio at the end of her garden, where she also delivers one-off workshops and classes in mosaics and stained glass. She loves to find out what makes people tick and get them to explore their creativity, leaving with a truly original piece of work which means something to them, and proves that with the right approach we are all creative.
Estelle Westlake
Estelle’s work is all hand-built and each piece is individual. She uses several basic techniques, coiling, slab work and clay extrusion
She is interested in the natural world and enjoys making organic shapes with different textures and finishes. She likes the world of children’s stories and often create characters from well-known tales.
Gill Whitehead
Gill is predominantly self-taught and gains plenty of inspiration and knowledge from the interesting courses and demos she has attended.
Her home studio is in Thorpe Bay where the Estuary provides her with fabulous views for her mixed media collages. I enjoy spontaneity, not sticking blindly to the view in front of me but responding without much planning to see what develops along the way. Her aim is to capture light, colour and texture with a variety of papers, paints, inks and pastels, adding subtle text to catch the eye.
Gill creats ethereal watercolours in a similar way but these are from her imagination and begin life as a wash of intermingling colours which she studies to see how she can develop. The unpredictability of the medium provides shapes which Gill alters and merge until she is happy with the outcome.
In complete contrast, she also draws detailed pastel and charcoal portraits of people and animals, aiming to capture likeness and character.
Each of these artists will also be represented at the HOME GALLERY over 12th-14th JUNE