Tony Hall Lois Hopwood Lottie O'Leary Exhibition Catalogue

TONY HALL LOIS HOPWOOD LOTTIE O’LEARY
28th November-19th December 2020

Small Green I Lois Hopwood pen & ink on paper 39 x 26 cm £300 Green Hill II Lois Hopwood pen & ink on paper 57 x 39 cm £480

Blue Sky II Lois Hopwood pen & ink on paper 70 x 84 cm £600

Walking with my Daughter on the Beacon Lois Hopwood oil on canvas 114 x 152 cm £960

My Son Runs Through the Landscape Lois Hopwood oil on canvas 114 x 153 cm £960

Dark Sky I Lois Hopwood pen &

ink on paper 122 x 228 cm £1200

York Stone Platter Lottie O’Leary 8 x 69 x 25 cm £520

Welsh Slate Carved Cores Lottie O’Leary £45 each

Dreich II Lois Hopwood oil on panel 42 x 63 cm £400

Dreich III Lois Hopwood oil on panel 20 x 41 cm £300
Dreich IV Lois Hopwood oil on panel 20 x 41 cm £300
Dreich I Lois Hopwood oil on panel 62 x 41 cm £400

Unomis Tony Hall ash glaze stoneware 9 x 9 cm (average size) £30-38

Unomis Tony Hall ash glaze stoneware 9 x 9 cm (average size) £30-38

Lost Words Lottie O’Leary portland stone on Welsh slate base 61 cm diameter (portland stone) 9 x 63 x 20 cm (slate base) £4400

My sculpture The Lost Words was carved for an exhibition
at The Lettering Arts Trust in Snape Maltings in the spring of
2019. The exhibition was inspired by the Robert Macfarlane and
Jackie Morris book, The Lost Words, highlighting those words
that are disappearing from childrens’ lives.
I chose some of those words from the book and decided to
carve a double sided relief, one side being a depiction of a rural
scene and the other, in contrast, quite abstract, the
seeds of life exploding out of a coiled fern. The whole carving
being wrapped and entwined by the persistent bramble and ivy,
the connection between the two sides, the wren. I was totally
inspired by the book and feel that these words should always be
part of a child’s vocabulary.
Once the idea was conceived, I loved carving it. I do very little
drawing, working mainly from photographs.
I chose Portland stone as it is fairly hard and can take good
detail to it, although this piece had some hard shelly bits in it, it
is a natural material after all …

Hydref II Lois Hopwood oil on panel 123 x 83 cm £800

Green Hill III Lois Hopwood pen & ink on paper 55 x 80 cm £600

Little Landscapes Lois Hopwood acrylic on ply 11 x 15 cm £100 each or £150 for two

Bottle Tony Hall wood ash stoneware 40 x 10 cm £140 Bottle II Tony Hall wood ash stoneware 40 x 10 cm £140

Bowls Tony Hall ash glaze stoneware 7 x 15 cm (average size) £30-38

Green Hill IV Lois Hopwood pen &

ink on paper 122 x 228 cm £1200

White Bowl Tony Hall talc glaze stoneware 9 x 23 cm £75
White Bowl interior detail

Small White Bowl Tony Hall talc glaze stoneware 6 x 17 cm £48
Small White Bowl interior detail

Small Vessel Tony Hall ash glaze stoneware 9 x 20 cm £75

Small Vessel interior detail

Winter Walk Lois Hopwood oil on panel 66 x 122 cm £800

Summer Walk Lois Hopwood oil on panel 66 x 122 cm £800

Bowl Tony Hall ash glaze stoneware with tenmoku interior 14 x 32 cm £120

Interior Detail Bowl (tenmoku black breaking to brown)

Bottles Tony Hall ash glaze stoneware 40 x 10 cm £120-160

Small Canisters Tony Hall ash glaze stoneware 9 x 13 cm £80

Walking with Ivon Hitchens Lois Hopwood oil on canvas 95 x 122 cm £800

Summer of 76 Lois Hopwood oil on panel 60 x 123 cm £750

Small Canister with Handle Tony Hall black ash stoneware 10 x 12 cm £95

Flask Tony Hall black ash & white talc glaze on stoneware 16 x 13 cm £75

Cyclamen Lois Hopwood oil on panel 31 x 49 cm £350

Still Life with a Cup Lois Hopwood pen & ink on paper 42 x 60 cm £350

Fifteen Vessels Lottie O’Leary £230 each

Yorkshire Sandstone
Red Sandstone

Hornton Ferruginous Limestone
Herefordshire Heather Sandstone

Portland Limestone

Abstract Study I Lois Hopwood oil on panel 21 x 50 cm £300

Abstract Study II Lois Hopwood oil on panel 24 x 42 cm £300

Dark Sky II Lois Hopwo

od pen & ink on paper 122 x 228 cm £1200

TONY HALL
Born and bred in Walsall, Tony went to Walsall Art College before a brief period at Byam Shaw to study
print. In the mid 1970s he travelled to France with fellow potter Janice Hunter, where he spent a year
splitting wood in the chestnut forests for the Anagama kilns and learning to throw Digan pottery.
Tony had a long and successful career at Whichford in Oxfordshire and continues to make
exceptional large-scale outdoor pots at his studio in Knucklas, on the Welsh Marches. He is one of the
few ‘big ware’ throwers in the country. He also practises as a portrait sculptor, and in 2014 won the
Portrait Sculptors Society prize at Sladmore Gallery.
Tony loves the alchemy of Pottery, developing the right blend of clays for the body of the pot and
making his own ash glazes from the burnt hedge clippings on the farm. He is an experienced workshop
leader as well as exceptional ceramic artist. He manages the conservation aspects of the farm, where
he is replanting the hillside with native trees and grows his own chestnut trees.
Tony has shown his work with the Ludlow Open, The Octagon Gallery in Whichford, The Oriel Davies,
Twenty Twenty and at the Workhouse in Presteigne. He takes part in h.Art and the open studio
weekend Made in Knucklas.
Throwing is about watching, it’s a great spectator sport. Then it’s about having a short go and repeating,
it’s quite a steep learning curve at the very beginning, a series of moves really and learning through touch.

LOIS HOPWOOD
Lois trained in Fine Art at Newcastle University between 1982 and 1986, was joint winner of the South
West Open in 1986 and gained her MA in Screen design at the NFTS in 2002. She has worked in
Tapestry Conservation with the Historic Royal Palaces Agency, and as a design assistant on Harry
Potter, Charlotte Grey and Neverland.
In 2009 she was AA2A at HCA and was selected for Re : drawing at the Oriel Davies and in 2010 won
the ING Drawing prize at The Mall Galleries. Her cross art form interests extend into film work as well
as working closely with Tony Hall developing an exceptional range of unique and distinctive Slip carved
pots. Painting and drawing have always been at the heart of Lois’ work and she has exhibited regularly
throughout the UK in group and one person shows, including The Oriel Davies, The Ludlow Open , Silk
Top Hat, Twenty Twenty, Bleddfa Gallery and The Table at Hay.
The Geology of the Teme valley causes the hillsides to be steep and the river valley narrow. Sheep farming
overlays this with a distinctive pattern of hedges. I am particularly drawn to the point at which farm land
stops and where the Beacon begins.
My exhibition began with sketch books, in which I draw the field lines, passage of lanes and placement
of buildings. I use a projector to make the big drawings in the studio on paper with pen and ink, I paint
the fields with gesso, the hedge lines are left exposed to yellow with UV light. The whole surface is coated
with a final glaze. The oil paintings on gesso evolve through washes of oil paint and sanding back until
everything is working at the same pitch. The large oil paintings on canvas have been about working with
oil paint at scale and took their cue from the smaller studies and have the figures moving through the
landscape.

LOTTIE O’LEARY
Lottie has been working with stone in one way or another for nearly 40 years. She trained in sculpture
conservation initially and travelled around Britain working in a variety of amazing locations. In her late
20’s she went back to college in Weymouth to study masonry and carving and subsequently worked as
a restoration carver, replacing broken noses and toes, with a spell at Stowe landscape gardens
replacing ionic volutes on Queen Carolines monument.
She has been living and working from Upper House in Knucklas for nearing 30 years, originally with her
husband and now on her own. Her work includes memorials, carving commissions and some on site
restoration work, as well as her own carvings for exhibitions. She also runs stone carving classes from
Knucklas.
My vessels come from the transition in my work between the structure and exactness of lettering, to the
freedom to work purely with shape and texture. I never really know where I am going with them, and that
is what I love. I will work on several at the same time, leaving them for days in various stages, to allow for
quiet contemplation over their final form. This pace of creating, having multiple objects on the go at once,
allows time for ideas and connections between other carvings - I am a direct carver, being that I rarely
make models, so once I have an idea it is drawn straight onto the stone before carving begins.
My ideas quite often end up as a group of carvings, one initial idea spinning off into various fragments, but
I’m always much inspired by the natural world, recently that has involved works featuring things we are
losing from nature, whether the words for which are going unused, or the plants and animals themselves
becoming endangered.

To purchase work please contact Val at
art@thetablehay.com or 07956 452195
The gallery offers Collectorplan an
initiative administered by the Welsh
Assembly enabling you to purchase work
up to the value of £5,000 with an interest
free loan repayable over a year.
The gallery is open Thursday - Saturday
10am - 4pm or by appointment during
exhibitions.
All works are for sale upon receipt of this
catalogue.

Blue Sky I Lois Hopwood oil on panel 85 x 70 cm £600