Description
Participating Artists Biographies with examples of their work
Cheshire Clay Studio Collective
This year Goosfest Art in the Barn is delighted to be working with Cheshire Clay Studios again.
Alongside hosting a programme of ceramic workshops and taster sessions, professional members of Cheshire Clay Studio have been invited to curate their own exhibition within the barn. Additional studio makers will also contribute work to our pop-up shop, bringing a rich and diverse range of ceramic approaches and techniques to this year’s event.
Exhibitors:
- Christine Truby
- Liz Anspoks
- Judy Beardsall
- Rob Shenton
- Elaine Watson
- Sue Yarnell
Cheshire Clay Studios situated at Lowes Farm, Byley has been a vibrant hub for pottery lovers since 2018, offering everything from one-off throwing experiences to specialist courses.
Co-owners Lisa and Liz bring an infectious enthusiasm for all things ceramic, reflected in the friendly, encouraging atmosphere of the studios. A growing community of members, many of whom started as complete beginners now regularly exhibit and sell their work.
www: cheshireclay.com
Rachael Addis
Rachael Addis (1977) is a contemporary painter based at Rogue Artists’ studios in Manchester and studied the Postgraduate Diploma at the Royal Academy of Arts Schools London. Rachael has exhibited nationally and internationally for over 20 years. Commissions include; an 8 metre mural at the entrance to the Co-Op Live Music Arena, Manchester, large scale works for the Six Senses Hotel London & paintings for The Joyce Wang Suite, Whitley Hotel. Rachael has works in prestigious collections including Harrods, VIP Lounge, KPNG, OWO Hotel. Clients and collaborations include Madri Beer and featured work in Harpers Bazaar and Flux Magazine. In 2020 Rachael was a featured artist on the BBC documentary about the Royal Academy summer exhibition.
Her formative years were spent between the Lake District and Asia and remain a key influence on her artistic processes, chosen pigments and overall aesthetic. Following a degree in Fine Art, Addis completed the three year Postgraduate programme at the Royal Academy of Arts Schools in London. Rachael is a qualified teacher and has over 20 years teaching experience in Art and Design, she is artist in resident at Delamere SEN School and has become a leading expert in creative arts with children with SEN.
www: rachael-addis-artist.com
Instagram: @rachael.addis.artist
Nigel Ball
A special Photography Exhibition @ Bidlea Café
Across the road from Art in the Barn
My name is Nigel Ball and I’m a UK based photographer specializes in night and astronomy-based imagery.
I first got interested in astronomy whilst watching the first Moon landing in 1969 with my father. Following a successful career as a software developer and later trainer in real time software I returned to the hobby around fifteen years ago combining two of my passions, astronomy and photography, to enter the amazing world of astrophotography.
I was elected to Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society in 2013 for my services to astrophotography and public outreach work. A few years later Nikon enrolled me into their Nikon Professional Services Programme and this gives me access to new lenses and cameras to test.
www: nigelaball.com
Barbara Biddulph
Through a mistake I experienced capturing the micro organisms left by dead, decaying plants. These extremely beautiful images fascinated me. Is this a death providing a life? Looking to further this process, I captured moments, usually celebratory events – flowers brought as gifts. By coincidence a tiny chick fell to its gruesome end. So jewel like. Again, a death providing something of wonder to the eye.
It isn’t always the end.
To draw is to capture a moment. It is for the person drawing to decide what marks will capture that moment. The ‘voice’ of the materials I use has a strong impact on how I make those marks. Often dictating a way of working found through experimentation.
Barbara Biddulph spent her career in the stop-frame animation business. Working on projects such as ‘Bob the Builder’, ‘Brambly Hedge’ and ‘The Clangers’. As a designer and art director, where drawing was a major part of every day. Concept designing new worlds and all that went in them.
Alan Birch
Alan Birch has been practising as a printmaker for over 30 years. For the exhibition in Goostrey Alan will be showing etchings and monoprints from residencies in Cornwall and the North East.
Alan is print specialist at the Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester has worked with a wide range of school and adult groups.
Alongside working in schools and galleries, he runs regular printmaking classes in his studio in Rossendale.
Alan has shown in numerous galleries in Northwest including The Whitworth, John Rylands Library, Stockport, Blackburn, Blackpool, Touchstones, Buxton and Castlefield Gallery
His work can be found in many public and private galleries.
www: alanbirch.co.uk
Eileen Bradbury
After retiring from my career as a psychologist, I successfully undertook an MA and then an MFA in painting, and then an MFA in painting at MMU School of Art (with Distinction). I paint in oil on canvas, and my paintings are full of vibrant colour in imagined abstract landscapes. I have shown and sold my work at art fairs in London, Manchester, Harrogate and Chester. I have had gallery shows in London and my paintings have featured in the London Underground. My work has also been lent to national charity caring for those in psychological crisis and is currently on the wall in their therapy room. I am 4 years into my new career as a painter and loving it.
www: eileenpaintings.com
Instagram: @eileenbradbury_painter
Peter Broadbent
I like my paintings to tell a story and I take time to get the look and composition I want. My experience comes from a career starting as a Disney artist working on Snow White, Jungle Book and Winnie the Pooh before going on to award-winning children’s toys for major brands like My Little Pony, Hey Duggee and in the night garden plus designing characters and vehicles for a new product that became Bob the Builder. I won toy of the year for designing the Big Red Fun Bus.
I mainly paint in acrylics and like to produce work that is affordable for most people when selling direct, as gallery commissions can increase the price. A lot of my work I do at present is for Green Pebble cards. In the past I have exhibited at The Design Centre in London and the Mall Galleries London, plus Tib Street gallery in Manchester.
Bagsy Drawings by Peter Davis
Peter Davis is a member of the Manchester Academy of Fine Arts (MAFA) and a prize-winning fine artist whose work has been exhibited in the Aesthetica Art Prize, the Cass Art Prize and the John Moores Painting Prize.
His original Bagsy drawings are pen-and-ink sketches drawn on recycled paper bags, fondly known as Bagsys. Each one is a unique, hand-drawn piece, and no two are ever the same, making every artwork one of a kind. Since beginning the series in 2022, these environmentally conscious works of well-known
landmarks have attracted media attention and become highly sought after by collectors.
www: bagsydrawings.com
Instagram: @bagsydrawings
Iain Davidson
Iain is a multi-disciplinary artist who combines landscape and landmarks with stylised graphical designs and historical reference. His practice focuses on hand printed multi-layer reduction linocuts, where colours are built up on top of each other over successive print runs, as well as ceramics and contemporary installations.
People often describe the calmness of Iain’s work; a reflection of his character and the way he feels when out walking coastlines or high in the mountains.
www: iaindavidson.art
Instagram: @iainprints
Liisa Dudgeon
Liisa’s work is rooted in her Finnish heritage and the design principles of Nordic design – striving to create more beautiful everyday things. She uses shape and form as a vehicle to explore pattern and colour. Liisa specialises in hand-built, coiled ceramics, and is currently expanding her practice into slip cast porcelain.
Liisa’s new collection being shown for the first time at Art in the Barn, will feature functional-ware such as vases and bowls as well as a selection of wall pieces.
Ian Ecclestone
Everyone is creative, it is an intrinsic need of human nature to observe and describe, why else would prehistoric cave paintings exist.
I like to produce my art outside of 4 walls, in cafes music venues, and dance halls. All the while trying to engage with people about the benefits of art
I try to capture the mood, lighting and power of the musician or dancer involved
Instagram: @ianeckey
Debbie Goldsmith
British artist Debbie Goldsmith explores the changing landscape through an expressive mix of large-scale paintings and tufted rugs, capturing the spirit and movement of the Cheshire countryside where she lives and works. Her practice begins outdoors, gathering visual impressions through walking and sketching. These rapid, intuitive studies of seasonal shifts and changing weather form the starting point for experimental processes in the studio, where she moves fluidly between drawing, printmaking, and painting.
Working primarily in oils on canvas, Goldsmith builds compositions through bold, sweeping brushstrokes, drips, and layered marks that suggest rather than define. Trees, paths, and fields emerge as fleeting forms—glimpsed rather than fixed. A final layer of oil bar drawing directly onto the surface reinforces the dynamic, physical energy of her process.
More recently, Goldsmith has expanded her practice into tufted rugs, translating her visual language into textured, tactile forms. These works extend the emotional and material qualities of her paintings into soft surfaces, inviting a different kind of engagement and blurring the boundaries between fine art and textile.
Her vibrant and expressive colour palette—often described as joyful and optimistic—conveys a sense of light and possibility. Titles reference weather and seasonal change, reflecting the transient beauty of the landscape. The scale and physicality of her work draw the viewer in, offering moments of recognition, memory, and reflection.
With a career that includes international exhibitions and commissions, and work held in both public and private collections, Debbie Goldsmith continues to evolve a distinctive and personal approach to abstract landscape—one that celebrates place, process, and the ever-changing view just beyond the horizon.
www: debbiegoldsmith.co.uk
Instagram: @debbie_goldsmith
Juliette Hamilton
Juliette works from her garden studio in South Manchester making willow sculptures of mainly animal form and the natural world. She uses different varieties and colours of English willow, some homegrown and some from Somerset. Her use of multiple rods and random weave suggests movement, weight and muscle tone and results in something beautiful and lifelike but with character. As well as taking commissions she runs workshops around the northwest and sells at events around the country.
www: juliettehamiltondesign.com
Instagram: @juliettehamilton
Facebook: juliettehamiltondesign
Sheila King
I paint mainly in watercolours which I started in 2012. I love mixing colours and watching them blend on the paper in the magical way that happens with watercolour. I particularly enjoy painting landscapes and seascapes with a focus on light and shade and I visit many places, mainly in the UK, to gather material so during the winter months I can transport myself back to wherever I wish using my paint brushes. In addition I volunteer at East Cheshire Hospice where I teach weekly art classes to the day care patients, sharing my love of watercolours and showing them how to produce paintings that they can be proud of and give to their family and friends.
Susan McCall
Landscape is the dominant theme throughout my life and my work reflects this continuing fascination.
I react most strongly to moving through landscape and view drawing, particularly whilst walking or travelling by boat, as the core tool of my visual practice.
The dynamic and rich oil paintings are an expression of the feeling of being in a place at a time, of the experience of the elements – light and space, colour and texture, the dramatic effects of natural light and atmospheric changes – and of pure pleasure in paint.
I capture the immediate visual stimuli of the moment and these spontaneous studies form the basis for the paintings.
Jim Medway
Artist in Residence – The Old Ticket Office @ Goostrey Station
Art Studio open to the public during Art in the Barn weekend
Station Road, Goostrey, CW4 8PJ
Inspired by traditional signwriting, decorative signage and railway lettering of the past, Jim Medway will exhibit the results of a two-week residency at the Old Ticket Office, artist studio @ Goostrey Station, alongside recent related work.
Jim works across comics, illustration, printmaking and signwriting, celebrating global popular visual culture and ephemera. He is based near New Mills, Derbyshire, and recently took part in the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition.
www: jimmedway.com
Instagram: @catdrawerjim
Jill Randall
I am an artist based based in north-west UK, and a member of the Royal Society of Sculptors and the European sculpture network.
Career highlights include participation in the Venice Biennale, and inclusion in the survey show ’35 years of sculpture’ at Castlefield Gallery, Manchester.
My main practice is sculpture, along with an important print practice, and I have a history of self-negotiated artists residencies in industry, including a magnesium-processing factory and several residencies working in metal-mining sites. I am interested in the idea of an ‘alternative beauty’ and ‘alternative nature’ drawn from overlooked, abject and strange landscapes and places.
I have recently become a member of Incidental_Unit, an organisation which seeks to continue the legacy of APG, (Artists Placement Group), and to reignite debates about the role of the artist in society.
www: jillrandall.co.uk
Sue Roberts
Living and working in Cheshire, it is a delight to be invited to exhibit again this year at Art in the Barn. My practice is going through a period of change after both a house move which has imposed a different working method, and a recent knee replacement. The new knee has given me a deeper insight into how physical my painting is – I move a lot when I’m painting!
My work is created using a variety of mediums in response to both physical and emotional provocation. That ‘wow’ moment – be it the juxtaposition of contrasting elements, a stirring piece of music, the ocean and always the wonderful surprises in my garden!
www: suerobertsart.com
Instagram: @sueroberts_art
Facebook: @suerobertsartist
Alex Russell
Alex Russell is a painter and printmaker. His practice explores the space between opposites: handmade and digital, methodical and intuitive, science and art, faith and doubt, chaos and pattern. His works are maps of their own making, visual records of routes found by the creative process.
Alex is intrigued by how traditions of composition can be expressed as a grammar and combined with the scientific concepts of complex systems and emergence. Overarching his practice is a conceptual approach to pattern, including repeat pattern (from textile design), design patterns (from software design) and pattern language (from architecture).
www: alexrussell.com
Instagram: @alexrussell_art
Facebook: @alexrussellartist
Liam Spencer
Liam Spencer was born in Burnley in 1964, and studied Fine Art at Manchester Polytechnic, graduating in 1986.
Known for his vivid portrayals of urban landscapes, particularly of Manchester, he came to prominence with a solo exhibition at the newly opened Lowry arts centre in 2000. Since that time, he has exhibited widely, most notably a retrospective at Manchester Art Gallery in 2006, “Manchester to Shanghai” and his paintings have been collected avidly. In 2005 he was the subject of a 30-minute documentary on the BBC.
His work can be seen in several public collections, including Manchester City Art Galleries, Salford Museum and Art Gallery, Touchstones Rochdale and Towneley Hall Museum and Art Gallery in Burnley.
His recent work is increasingly concerned with nature, and how wildlife has repopulated our post-industrial landscapes. A recent exhibition – “Irwell: Afterlife” explored the return of nature to a once badly polluted industrial river, and for the first- time added video installations to the mix of paintings and drawings.
www: liamspencer.co.uk
Instagram: @spencer_liam
Facebook: @liamspencerartist
