Art that stretches your eyes at 2023 Cambridge Open Studios

One of the dozens of exhibitions taking place across the city for this year’s Cambridge Open Studios - which takes place across four weekends in July - features the work of Katy Bailey and Joe Dean.

Both have a considerable body of work to select their exhibits from. Joe’s cinematic painting style has branched out to include printmaking, photography and “all sorts”. He got his MA in fine art from the Cambridge School of Art in 2022, crossing paths for a while with Katy, who got her MA from the school in 2021.

They also exhibit regularly in Cambridge and elsewhere, Katy most recently in June at the Pastel Society in London’s Mall Gallery. As well as pastels, she works in charcoal, cyanotypes and drypoint.

“I see Cambridge Open Studios as an opportunity to summarise my work,” says Joe, who teaches art at Comberton Sixth Form.

The joint show happened because both artists are fellow walkers - Katy walks her dogs, and Joe enjoys the outdoors because it “stretches my eyes”.

Their walking activities were necessarily curtailed during lockdown and, though they are out there exploring again now, there has been an effect on their work.

“If there is a theme to my current work it’s always about what I’m passionate about at the time, and that is space,” says Katy, sitting in the front room of her home near Cherry Hinton Park surrounded by the show’s artwork. “It’s about going on walks and capturing a moment in time and the meaning of those walks.”

For Joe, the episodes of enforced inactivity saw a change both in his behaviour and his outlook.

“In the lockdowns, I was watching a lot of YouTube and I’d never done that before,” he says.

“I found John Rogers [film-maker and author of ‘This Other London - adventures in the overlooked city’] doing the London walks he does, they’re sort of history walks but ordinary walks. We couldn’t really go anywhere so I started walking vicariously through him and Katy was my lifeline.”

After the initial lockdown the rules relaxed somewhat.

“I was doing 10k walks but they were nearby,” says Katy. “I discovered lots of Natural Trust walks.”

“It was a period of reflection,” adds Joe. “Where I ended up was different from where I started, which was as a painter, now I’m a woodcutter, I do videos, drawings, digital art. When you come out of something like that…”

“You feel a bit numb,” says Katy.

Joe’s earlier work - some of which is at the show - was very much Americana, and Hollywood film noir settings in particular: moody, slightly sinister even, definitely atmospheric, with hints of loneliness, even dystopia, in public places. Is that period over now?

“Yes,” he replies. “I don’t always know where I’m going but they all have to be atmospheres and journeys. I do various walks, I’m a bit of a flâneur actually, I need a physical connection, whether it’s beautiful or ordinary. There’s beauty in the ordinary too.”

So the direction of travel might include painting?

“I think I’ll find my way back to painting, but it’ll be different,” says Joe. “There’s multiple pathways and processes now.”

The exhibition is on again Sunday (July 9), plus July 15 and 16.

Meanwhile, check the programme for other multiple pathways and processes. There’s lots on display at a marquee set up at Burwash Manor, including jewellery and some astounding wood craft.

Full details here.

Open Studios runs across the first four weekends of July.