ANNETTE PUGH

Annette Pugh is a member of Birmingham Artspace and was an elected Royal Birmingham Society of Artists (RBSA) council member, curator and artist for many years up until 2022. She has a deep-set fascination with archive materials and the printed image. Through a range of media, she explores, edits and re-presents concepts relating to leisure, longing and absence.

Annette draws on long discarded and forgotten archive photographic sources such as family photo albums, tourist guides and images on slide and film. The original sources capture brief moments in seemingly tropical landscapes, figures recorded at leisure and personal histories that remain unknown.

As a medium, film offers an instant snapshot, but it fades and deteriorates over time. Painting however transposes the medium, allowing the artist to alter, adapt and rewrite the shot, imposing her own nostalgic views and interpretations. By Annette’s hand, the scenes gain in atmosphere and romanticism, heightened by an unreal tinting reminiscent of old photography techniques.

Annette has a BA (Hons) in Fine Art, an MA in Fine Art and an MA in Art and Design Histories. She has exhibited extensively, including at the Royal West of England Academy Open Exhibition (Bristol), the Coventry University Drawing Prize exhibition, the West Midlands Open and the RBSA Open (Birmingham). She is currently working towards a solo show at The New Art Gallery Walsall in 2023.

Her work is also exhibited in solo painting and photographic shows in commercial galleries, including at Colley Ison Gallery (Birmingham) in 2019 and 2018 and at Argentea Gallery (Birmingham) in the same years. Recent group exhibitions include Figurative Art Now at the Mall Galleries, Ikon for Artists at Ikon Gallery Birmingham and Returning Voices (Art\write online project) in 2021, Hinterland 3 at the Medicine Gallery, Birmingham, in 2020, at Blue Door Gallery, Coventry, in 2019 and at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery in 2018. Annette has contributed to a series of collaborative projects with Art\write and is co-curator of Next Wave, a biennial exhibition for emerging and mid-career artists. Gala Fine Art showed Annette’s work at the annual London Art Fair at the Business Design Centre in Islington in January 2023 and 2024.