The Fylingdales Group of Artists
Angie McCall
Angela draws inspiration from her local surroundings, incorporating the natural elements and fleeting glimpses of the ever changing landscape and seasons. Her colourful watercolour flower portraits possess semi abstract qualities playing with light, colour and texture to convey atmosphere and a ‘beyondness’. Her passion for watercolour is obvious and combined with mixed media, she is able to achieve more interesting and creative results. The flower is a starting point from which emerges a more powerful and energetic piece.
Her recent work explores the endless possibilities of paper collage using a variety of mediums to produce unique and exciting representations of landscape and coastal scenes. She experiments and observes the way in which paints and inks react with different papers and sometimes fabrics to create interesting, vibrant and colourful pieces. The use of text in order to interweave captions and convey messages within the work is an unusual step and enables her to create an exciting, colourful and individual style.
Angela's passion for art and creativity has been with her from very early childhood when she would spend hours drawing and painting. Whilst working for Courtaulds she studied textile design and printing at Birmingham and Coventry Colleges of Art and showed an obvious flair for textile design. However, she chose to pursue a secretarial career. During her time with the Automobile Association she was responsible for window display and used her creative talents with paper sculpture to create attractive and unusual displays for the Townpoint in Coventry.
Although Angela is renowned for her watercolour flower portraits she loves experimenting with other mediums including silk painting, acrylics, mixed media, collage and covering a variety of subjects. She has successfully exhibited at many locations throughout the country including the Westminster Gallery, London, the Scarborough Biennial Exhibitions at the Crescent Gallery, The Pannett Gallery, Whitby, The Ferens, Hull, Helmsley Arts Centre and The Ripon Festival. For eleven years she exhibited with the International Guild of Artists at Ilkley where her work was highly commended. In 1995 she was commissioned to create some giant sized poppies made from handmade paper for the production of ‘For Services Rendered’ at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough and has assisted in other productions. In 1998 Angela was made a Full Member of the British Watercolour Society and in June 2002 was made a Fellow of the International Guild of Artists. She received the Canson Award for the most discerning artist and the British Society of Painters Award in March 2005 and in December was awarded the Daler Rowney award for an artist of true merit.
Her first solo exhibition was in April 2001 with 'Waltz of the Flowers” at Nunnington Hall. This was part of the celebrations to mark the National Trust's Year of the Garden. She was invited to return there in June 2002 with her latest collection of work.. Her work was also selected for publication in September 2002 issue of the Leisure Painter and later when she won an award for her painting of Pickering’s Art Store.
On seven occasions Angela’s work has been selected for the Artists Section, Patchings National competition organised by the Artists Publishing Group. These works have been displayed at the annual Festival in Nottinghamshire. In 2005/7/9 she received awards for her entries which were featured in issues of the Artist magazines. This year her piece, ‘Haunted Garden’ was selected and received the Daler Rowney Award.
For five years she was Chair of the Vale of Pickering Art Club and was actively involved in fund raising for the Memorial Hall, Pickering for which, in 2005, she received an award from Ryedale District Council. Her work has included eleven successful art exhibitions featuring the work of Yorkshire Artists, workshops and ‘Big Draw’ event October 2004. Until recently Angela ran painting workshops for various organisations together with her own group ‘Busybrushes Painting for Pleasure’, encouraging others to 'have a go' with her unbridled enthusiasm and passion for painting.
For seven years Angela has combined her paintings with the work of a fellow artist and calligrapher in successful exhibitions ‘A Brush With Words’ in Pickering and Helmsley and at the Danby Visitors Centre. This year and for the second time she was an invited guest artist with the Fylingdales Group showing at their annual exhibition at the Pannett Gallery, Whitby and was subsequently delighted to accept their offer of full membership in June 2011.
