Esther Lafferty

If you’re a regular walker along the paths and in the parks of Oxford, it’s likely you’ll have come across Emma Coleman-Jones, wrapped up against the weather all year round

Art can be a transformative journey, a therapeutic activity which enhances cognitive function, reduces stress and anxiety, and enhances wellbeing; offering offer solace and empowerment, building resilience and contributing to recovery.

Artweeks newcomer Sophie Bass creates vibrant bold paintings with gouache paints, pencils and fineliners in a distinctive contemporary style. They are bursting with vivid colour and strong characters. Here Esther Lafferty asks about her art, her inspiration and how she hopes her art can help change the world.

Contemporary artist Chloe Brown, who has a permanent art display at Aintree, the home of the Grand National, is opening her Bicester studio during Oxfordshire Artweeks and welcoming visitors to come and meet her and see her work. Esther Lafferty finds out more.

OX Magazine are delighted to support Oxfordshire artists and bring you behind-the-scenes stories of their creativity all year round. As we look ahead to next month’s Oxfordshire Artweeks’ open studios and pop-up exhibitions (4-27 May), we’d like to introduce you to some of the artists and makers who will be showing their work as part of the festival for the first time this year.

Cathryn Jeff is a popular Oxfordshire landscape artist, known for her vibrant paintings that enhance the colours and views of the county with texture, energy, and sparkling imagination.

For our March issue the focus is women as both subject and creator.

This year Harriet Coleridge of Ewelme Pottery is celebrating forty years being a potter. It’s a path that she came across quite fortuitously and chose to follow on the spur of the moment – and one that she has never regretted. Esther Lafferty hears her story.

Printmaker Sally-Anne Stewart is the winner of the 2024 Artweeks Mary Moser Award, an annual award intended to help develop the career of a professional artist who has taken up art as a second career later in life. Artweeks Festival Director Esther Lafferty visited her to find out about her art.