A Group Exhibition Featuring Works by Tabby Booth, Simran Panesar, Shadi Vezvaei, Perienne Christine, Olivia Kemp, Emma Sheehy, Amy Austin, and Amaranta Pena.
FOLK: The Art of Spring
‘Folk: The Art of Spring’ showcases works by artists who draw inspiration from the essence of this vibrant season. Through their creations, they offer a lens into the ways Spring is celebrated and revered across different cultures.
-
Spring is a season of awakening, a time when the natural world emerges from winter's shadow and life begins anew. Across the globe, cultures have long celebrated this renewal through festivals, rituals, and traditions that honour the profound connection between humanity and nature. From religious ceremonies to community gatherings, Spring symbolises light triumphing over darkness, growth flourishing from dormancy, and the promise of new beginnings. It is a season that inspires creativity, with its beauty reflected in music, dance, and art—expressions of gratitude for the warmth and vitality it brings.
Folk: The Art of Spring showcases works by artists who draw inspiration from the essence of this vibrant season. Through their creations, they offer a lens into the ways Spring is celebrated and revered across different cultures. From depictions of blooming landscapes to artistic interpretations of traditional rituals, this exhibition is a celebration of nature's rebirth. It invites you to explore how the spirit of Spring transcends borders, connecting us all through the shared experience of renewal, growth, and the boundless beauty of the world around us.
Bella Taleghani- Gallery Assistant
TABBY BOOTH
Quickly becoming known for her signature silhouette, Tabby Booth’s work treads a captivating parallel between illustration and traditional folk art painting. With a passion for interiors, each piece is designed with this in mind, threaded with themes of beasts, folklore and the sea.
Tabby studied illustration at Central St Martins and went on to found Cygnets Art School and Sailors Jail Gallery with her artist husband James Heslip. They live in Cornwall with their two children Rudy and Ziggy.
SIMRAN PANESAR
Simran Kaur Panesar is a Kenyan born artist, living in London, with roots hailing in Punjab and India. From Indian and Persian miniature painting, to motif, pattern work and fresco designs, Simran's work follows a path deep into the culture and history of the Sikhs, exploring the rich traditions of her religious identity alongside her present identity living as a Sikh artist in the 21st century. Her work takes form around many stories linked to her faith, culture, memories of home, utilising the natural world to bring these into form.
Simran Kaur Panesar has trained under the guidance of a range of traditional art practitioners and holds many painting and material skills in the traditional arts. Her own work follows the Indian miniature painting tradition, with some influences from Persian miniature painting to bring her narratives to life. She currently works with naturally sourced materials and mediums. focusing on preparing her materials as part of her process. From stone pigments. to creating Indian 'vasli" paper, Simran Kaur Panesar's practice focuses not only on the process of painting but every step beforehand that transcribes the inner into physical form.
She also places importance in traditional techniques of making and painting to keep these traditions alive and work within processes that are close to her heritage. By bringing these techniques into more contemporary narratives and modern contexts, Simran merges these timelines together, creating works that are not only relevant and close to the hearts of many now, but hold significance within worlds past
SHADI VEZVAEI
Shadi Vezvaei’s paintings reflect her Persian heritage, blending tradition with contemporary themes.
Inspired by Persian miniature painting, her techniques echo Byzantine and Medieval illuminated manuscripts. In the 16th century, miniature painting was a male-dominated art form. Drawing from Shahnameh narratives, Vezvaei revives the voices of women once depicted in these ancient texts. Her work bridges past and present, exploring themes of identity, dislocation, and resilience.
Her narrative scenes depict Persian culture through delicate symbolism, vibrant mineral-based pigments, and classic compositions. Horses, lovers, and poets appear in profile, echoing traditional motifs. Water is rendered in silver, enhancing the luminosity of her work. Vezvaei’s art challenges stereotypes, celebrating the strength and beauty of Iranian women and women worldwide. Each brushstroke intertwines modernity with heritage, offering a contemporary audience a window into Persian culture’s enduring spirit.
PERIENNE CHRISTINE
Perienne weaves together landscape, wild plant and story medicine. Like a patchwork quilt of memories, dreams and observations, she stitches together stories that exist in multiple layers on the one picture plane. Perienne works intuitively, allowing unseen elements to guide her as she works.
Perienne was awarded a scholarship to study for a masters in drawing at the Royal Drawing School in London in 2006, where she received the Chairman’s first prize for her end of year exhibition, which included images that were to be the sparks for the work shes creates today; a bridge between the observed world, dream and imagination.
She is now senior teaching faculty at the Royal Drawing school, where she runs courses that emphasise this cross over from observation into imagination.
She has exhibited nationally and internationally, including at the Royal Academy of Arts, Buckingham Palace and Christie’s in New York and her work is held in many public and private collections.
EMMA SHEEHY
Emma creates imaginative spaces that are escapist, funny and folkloric. They are filled with a somewhat weaponised naivety. Often drawing upon medieval-inspired imagery she likes to build up a collection of creatures to play with again and again in sculptures. Her work reaches back through time to conjure ancient ritual, symbols and stories closely linked to the land and the natural environment. Emma is influenced by mythology, medieval manuscripts and awkward public interactions.
Emma is interested in relief carving – a way of making that speaks to the screen, the book and story telling. She uses her research as a means of understanding the present. The strange creatures she creates complicitly smile at our contemporary moment and the repeating patterns we find ourselves in. They seek to communicate that to love is a freedom from pain.
Making work that privileges love has influenced her commitment to producing sculpture that is sustainably minded – mostly out of wood and carefully sourced materials.
AMY AUSTIN
Sussex-based artist, Amy Austin, reflects her profound fascination with the art of storytelling through her paintings. Drawing inspiration from folklore and mythology, she delves into the realm of the female experience within various environments. These figures inhabit their own alternate universe, where the written word, be it her own or that of others, serves as a source of inspiration. Within Amy’s work, she interweaves narratives, enabling characters to traverse their own stories while simultaneously uncovering personal mythologies.
Each layer of paint enables narratives to shape themselves, creating an evolving visual tapestry. Figures may be conjured from the subtle suggestion of a face formed by staining on the canvas or the way that water has pooled on paper.
Ultimately, Amy’s artwork serves as a conduit between the ethereal realms of folklore and mythology and the tangible world we inhabit. It invites viewers to immerse themselves in a realm of visual storytelling, where the boundaries of reality and imagination blur.
Amy studied with the Royal Drawing School on their Online Drawing Development Year in 2022 and completed her MA in Fine Art in 2024. She has exhibited works at Green and Stone Gallery, Bermondsey Project Space and Glyndebourne Opera House and was shortlisted for the Waverton Art Prize 2024.
AMARANTA PENA
Amaranta has always been captivated by the magical worlds of stories and myths told by grandparents. As a guardian of this fabric woven from words seeped in knowledge, she watch for glimpses of it in paintings, illustrations and ceramics that she might pass it along to the generations which follow.
Amaranta was born in Quito, Ecuador and completed her bachelor's degree in Applied Anthropology at the Politecnica Salesiana University. Her interests in holistic well-being and liberal arts education led her to explore the fine arts and crafts of different cultures. Amaranta immerses herself within their narrative seeking the shared invisible points of departure and arrival.
The materials she uses have become a principal part of her practice. The process of transforming a piece of rock into pigment is a manifestation of the connection with the primordial. Amaranta’s most recent works comprise an immersion in the realm of miniature painting using ink and watercolours.
Displayed Here are a selection of Artworks. Please visit the Exhibition to see all works; alternatively email us at thegallery@greenandstone.com to request a full artworks list.