INTERSECTIONS

MEET THE ARTISTS SHOWING IN “INTERSECTIONS” 11TH -13TH SEPTEMBER 2026

ARTIST BIOS

Stephen Bacon

Stephen has always been interested in art. He took up stippling 3 years ago, an illustration technique that uses thousands of tiny ink or paint dots. and got Stephen got hooked. Although the process takes a very long time, Stephen loves the process and the results. Like most artists, he is never happy with the last piece he creates and always wants to improve his next drawing

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. 

Florence Geary

Florence is a photographer drawn to the character and atmosphere of local scenes and everyday places. From an early age, she has been captivated by the way light, perspective, and timing can transform the familiar into something compelling. After studying Photography and Media Arts at university, Florence developed a practice rooted in experimentation, observation and exploration.

Her work moves between documentation and creative interpretation, often with a strong focus on colour and light. She is interested in how images can evoke personal memories or emotions, creating a quiet dialogue between the scene and the viewer. Alongside her work as a photographer, she is also a curator and co-owner of a gallery, where Florence continues to share and support visual storytelling that resonates beyond the frame.

Julia Hart

Julia is a mixed media artist working in inks, acrylics, watercolours, & print media. 
Based in Benfleet, Essex she finds the everchanging views, light & landscape of the Estuary a constant source of inspiration. She is also greatly inspired by animals, photographs, myths, poetry, art processes and concepts.
Whatever the subject it is always through the prism of colour. Her work is largely impressionistic as she seeks to create the emotional response a subject can generate.
Julia has been a (mostly) self-taught artist for seven years. Recently, attending a Print (Etching) course at the Royal Drawing School, London.
You can currently find Julia’s work on the Leigh Art Trail, at exhibitions with Southend Art Club and at the Old Leigh Artists Market.
For the past two years alongside artists Alison Bournes & Nicola Osborne she has been working hard at creating, and delivering a new successful Art Trail – ‘CAOS’ (Castlepoint Artists Open Studios) with workshops, events & an Art Exhibition hosted by Hadleigh Old Fire Station Arts Centre (HOFS).
Julia is now delighted in 2025 to work from a studio at HOFS. Visitors are very welcome – just contact her for a time you would like to visit.

Scott Irving

Scott Irving. AKA Scotty Brave has been an artist ambassador for the UK’s graffiti & street art movement Playing an era defining role in the UKs acceptance of ‘outsider art’.

A Basildon-born Guyanese/British mixed heritage artist, he first got into graffiti around 1987. Teaching his first ‘graffiti art workshop’ in 1997. After studying for a degree in Graphic design, he established BRAVE_ARTS in 2001

Linda Jenkins

Linda has been interested in painting/textiles and print making for many years. The years passed, she then moved and lived in Italy for over twenty years, she had her own workshop/studio creating her own designs which she transferred onto linen for the Italian ladies to hand embroider. Linda built up her own cottage industry of arts and crafts for several years.
Linda then moved back to Essex where she worked in a local Grammar School in the Creative & Performing Arts Faculty for 10 years which was a real pleasure.
These past 10 years Linda has been able to dedicate her time to her passion. Her favourite choice of medium is acrylics usually on large canvases.  Linda has won The People’s Choice in a local art exhibition in 2022, which was a real confidence booster. In 2025 two of her larger paintings were chosen for the 60th Essex Open Exhibition at The Beecroft.  She has exhibited at Lloyd’s of London Art Group exhibition in November 2025. 

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 ever-changing 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

Bronwyn Oldham

Essex based photographic artist Bronwyn Oldham, is an avid floral photographer, as well as enthusiastic gardener cultivating the flowers she photographs from seed or bulb. 

“I am amazed at the rich and deep colours mother nature creates in her floral displays, combined with the intricate shapes and forms of the foliage. Their beautiful colours, feminine forms play a powerful presence in our everyday lives. Yet, as I begin to observe and capture the changes in flowers, so I begin to accept the inevitability that besets us all with the passing of time.”

“I feel compelled to capture this ‘moment in time,’ when it is ‘just past it’s best,’ and my photographic work therefore honours the final flourishes of floral beauty, to reveal the delicate form and beautiful fading colours of nature’s flora on a ‘larger than life’ scale. This constant cycle of life, which can easily be equated to the human condition.”

She is a regular exhibitor in The Leigh Art Trail and has gallery representation at 70 Broadway Gallery, as well as work in private collections across the world. 

Vadims Pjatrikovs

Vadims is a UK-based printmaker working in silkscreen printing and linocut, often blending traditional printing techniques with experimental approaches. 

Since the beginning of his artistic journey in 2005, Vadims has been deeply engaged in exploring visual storytelling, initially through the medium of art photography. Photography played a crucial role in shaping his artistic voice, allowing him to capture and frame moments of both reality and imagination. However, his  creative path has evolved, and he is now fully dedicated to printmaking, where he finds the freedom to express a broader and more complex vision.

His work moves between abstraction, portraits, and scenes from everyday life—each print balancing precision with experimentation, tradition with personal expression.

Tim Severwright

Tim is a self-taught digital photocollagist living and working in Southend. He draws his inspiration from the urban environment both locally and further afield. He is a sucker for a bit of brutalism.

Initially, he produced images in an expanded realist style, taking as an embarkation point, Hockney’s joiners. More recently, he has been experimenting with increasingly abstract forms of representation.

He has exhibited in The Beecroft, the Two Tree gallery and Cafe 21 among other places.

Michael Upton

Michael 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 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.

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.