Exploring ideas of confinement, our relationship to environment and the changing emotions that these things have brought about during the current pandemic is the focus of our Winter Show. Each artist was offered the theme of ‘emergence’ to consider and respond to with new work. “Awakening is a series of mixed media paintings I created in response to this strange global situation. I have used the octopus as a symbol of the human spirit. Its resilience, flexibility and creativity enables it to adapt within difficult and challenging environments constantly using its ingenuity to survive in unpredictable circumstances.  I’m a diver and the few encounters I have been lucky to have with these incredible creatures have left me humbled by their intelligence and beauty. Sometimes they play with you and it’s quite magical – they touch parts of your soul you never knew existed. The pandemic has given us a heightened awareness of our environment, of space and detail. The background in each work is built in many layers, collaged, removed in areas, sometimes jarring, awkward and unnatural, sometimes almost subsuming the octopus until it disappears in parts. In others it’s strong and in control mimicking its surroundings, having fun. We have much to learn from them.”    Karenina Fabrizzi