Artist Spotlight: Patti Webb and Louise Whitham
Patricia Webb trained in classical ballet, worked in physical theatre, travelled. Directed festivals in Covent Garden, and photographed performers there. Went digital in 2002, learnt digital software techniques. Gathered images on travels. Member of PhotoHastings, motorbike rider, ME sufferer.
Patti’s photos are usually taken digitally on both Fuji mirrorless and Nikon full frame. All the post-production work is in Lightroom and Photoshop. She adds texture from a library, collected over the years, and adds watercolour brush strokes within Photoshop. The result is an image which is almost a painting, but not – a developing technique. She creates formal portraits in the subject’s home or workplace.
Louise Whitham was an active Brixton artist for decades, and was in the past part of the Bad Behaviour Brixton Artists’ Collective. She arrived in St Leonards six years ago. Her Suffragette protest work Face to the Dawn was shown at Hastings Contemporary in 2021. This year she was awarded the De La Warr Pavilion Studio Prize.
Louise takes Polaroids of her subjects shaking their heads to signify ‘no’. She then distresses the print, creating textures and tones which combine to reveal the final image. Always imaginative, her images are abstract, but both face and shape can still be discovered.
The intention of our recent exhibition, The Disobedient of the Third Age, was to explode the quiet acceptance of invisibility in women ‘of a certain age’. Whilst applauding youth for their energy, in our exhibition we venerated the wrinkled skin, experience, aging, and the human condition inspired by strong, confident women of Hastings and around the world.
Both photographers are available for commissions.
We hope you have enjoyed reading this article. The future of our volunteer led, non-profit publication would be far more secure with the aid of a small donation. You can also support local journalism by becoming a friend of HIP. It only takes a minute and we would be very grateful.
Leave a Reply