Jeremy Bear - The Creative Spirit

PRESS RELEASE 26 June 2017

ARTIST RETURNS TO SUSSEX ROOTS

After a career in film and television design Jeremy Bear is having his first ever comprehensive exhibition of over 80 paintings and drawings as well as designs for television favourites like Dr Who and The Onedin Line at The Birley Centre in Eastbourne. The Birley Centre is part of Eastbourne College where Jeremy was at school in the early 1960s making this is the perfect venue for an overview of his whole creative career. 

‘The Creative Spirit’ –  Exhibition of Paintings and Drawings

Portraits of Sussex Crafts People at Work  +  South Coast and Other Working Boats  

Street Life in India and Japan   +   Art Work for Film and Television

The Birley Centre, 49 Carlisle Road, Eastbourne BN21 4EF from 7 – 23 July

Opening with the artist on Friday 7 July 6 – 8 pm 

Artist also there on Saturdays and Sundays 8, 9,   5,16,   22, 23 July 10 am – 4 pm

Visits on other days can be arranged by contacting jezbear@yahoo.co.uk

People and their lives are at the heart of Jeremy Bear’s work. His creative process starts when his attention is caught by the creative spirit of others. It may be people he knows well, purposefully working in their chosen media, as with the present series of crafts people, or a chance encounter during his travels, that provides the material for each vibrant painting and detailed coloured drawing. It is the individuals themselves, their activity and even sometimes the surroundings in which he finds them that is the central to revealing his vision of their ‘creative spirit’.  

In this exhibition there are more than 80 works.  It features 20 paintings showing city life in Kolkata and rural Indian locations; a new group of works from a visit to Japan; and around 10 paintings and drawings in Jeremy’s latest series showing well-known crafts people at work, many of whom are Sussex based. 

Jeremy is a very keen sailor and has belonged to different clubs over the years starting as a boy with the Pevensey Bay Sailing Club, later the Bexhill Sailing Club and most recently the Bewl Valley Sailing Club. He has a continuing passion for the sea and working boats and on view also will be a selection of his studies of the fast disappearing traditional, South Coast wooden fishing boats which still come ashore on the steep, shingle beach in Hastings. 

A selection of drawings and other art work from his career as a film and television designer will also be included. These demonstrate how his own art practice nowadays links with his earlier design work for hundreds of productions ranging from period dramas like The Onedin Line to fantasy Dr Who stories.

Jeremy was a student many years ago at Eastbourne College and is delighted to be showing the full range of his lifetime of creative work at the College’s Birley Centre.  His Sussex ties continued as he moved on to Brighton College of Art and after many years at the Design Department at the BBC in London and as Head of Design at Yorkshire Television in Leeds he has now returned to his roots to work in his own studio near the village of Rushlake Green.

For more information contact

Jeremy Bear         jezbear@yahoo.co.uk          mobile 07532 264862               www.jeremybear.co.uk