THE Brewhouse is the location for an exciting new exhibition featuring five artists and makers from Somerset, Devon and Dorset.

The five have been selected from Creative Coverage, which represents professional artists and craftspeople.

World renowned sculptor Peter Hayes will show his work alongside sculptor Moira Purver. There will also be paintings by Joanna Commings and David Shanahan as well as etchings by Mary Gillett SWAc.

The exhibition runs from March 3 to April 18, 2016.

Peter Hayes (Somerset)

Bath based Peter Hayes trained at Birmingham College of Art and his work is in public collections throughout the world. "I am naturally drawn to shapes of artefacts and objects from other cultures and other times but that remain timeless," he says. "Erosion and change through time and nature are recorded in a piece. My main aim in my work is not to compete with nature, but for the work to evolve within the environment. The minerals, like iron and copper that I introduce into the Raku ceramic surface have their own affect on the clay. This erosion process continues with sanding so that the texture and cracks do not interrupt the surface but become an organic, integral part of the patina. Each individual piece takes on its own developing surface, its own history and its own aesthetic. I am merely the maker."

Moira Purver (Dorset)

Award winning Dorset based Moira Purver is an elected full member of the Society of Women Artists and a trustee of Purbeck Art Weeks. She is a figurative sculptor working largely from life to capture the essence of warmth, vitality and movement in the human form. "Although a large part of my work involves portraying the softness of the female form, I have also completed several male sculptures using stronger muscle tone and texture," says Moira, who received an award for her sculpture 'Male Torso' at the Society of Women Artists Open Exhibition in 2010. Moira exhibits at the Mall Galleries with the SWA and the Royal Society of British Artists (2014, 2015). Her life size sculpture 'Self-Contained Man' was included in the Royal West of England Academy Open Exhibition in 2014. Her sculpture 'Roe Fawn' has been shortlisted and selected for the David Shepherd Wild Life Artist of the Year 2015 exhibition in the Mall Galleries in London. She exhibits throughout the UK and with the RHS to name but a few. As a trustee of the Purbeck Art Weeks Festival (PAW) Moira opens her studio for two weeks every year as part of PAW.

Joanna Commings (Somerset)

Joanna Commings is an associate of The South West Academy. She was born in London and started drawing and painting from an early age, inspired by her father who was an artist. "Initially my main interest was in portraiture for which I still take commissions on a sale or return basis," she explains. "But when I moved to Cornwall over a decade ago the wild and beautiful scenery here influenced me to turn to landscape painting. This has now become my major passion." Joanna works mainly in acrylics, which she loves "for their versatility and flexibility" on handmade watercolour papers, canvas or board.

David Shanahan (Devon)

"I’ve always been fascinated by the eye that turns to engage us, whether it be a photograph, a snapshot, or indeed a painting," says David. "No matter which century these images are made in, they all seem to me to have a similar sort of ambiguity. At one level they appear to be a simple record of a moment in time, a little piece of truth if you like, and yet we’re all aware that behind that stare, behind that momentary engagement with us the viewer, there is nearly always an attempt to convey something more than mere flesh and blood. In many of my own paintings the people turn to look out at us as if they’d been asked to stop what they were doing so that we might examine them, and it’s that frozen moment that really fascinates me. Who are they these people? Why are they there, and what will happen to them when we turn away? It’s as if we only have the first page of a book, and whilst this may, or may not provide enough information to fill in some of the gaps, for the most part, all we can assemble is the mask and not the person. Unlike film or video say, moving pictures which tell us what is going to happen, these are images of small contained worlds, moments in time that are so completely cut off from us, all we have to work with are a few slices of time and our own endless imaginations."

Mary Gillett SWAc (Devon)

Devon based Mary Gillett trained in Bristol and Brighton and holds a BA(Hons) in Fine Art, a PGCE and a Postgraduate Diploma in Printmaking. "My pictures are interpretations of the ephemeral moods of landscape and sea," she explains. "Most of the places I choose are ones that I know well from childhood, and to which I return again and again. The images are imbued with memories." Mary finds initial starting points for her work on Dartmoor, the Cornish coast and in British Columbia. Her etchings almost look as if they have been eroded by the elements themselves. The metal plates have been scored and furrowed, scraped, burnished, re-scored and re-furrowed until their history is symbolic of the very subject that confronts her. Her oil paintings and pastels are informed by the etchings but are often lighter in feel. She has been running printmaking courses from her private workshop near Tavistock for 22 years. She is a member of the Plymouth Society of Artists, the South West Academy and the 21 Group of Artists, and a founder member of the Tamar Valley based artists’ group, Drawn to the Valley.