Visit artist's studios and venues in Peterborough and the surrounding areas
Join me for a number of classes at Peterborough Museum throughout the year. Figure and observational drawing classes and charcoal More
![Join me for a number of classes at Peterborough Museum throughout the year. Figure and observational drawing classes and charcoal workshops can be booked through the Arttickets and Eventbrite pages linked to the Peterborough Museum website:
www.peterboroughmuseum.org.uk
I am pleased to present my latest exhibition this one is at Peterborough Museum and Art Gallery, 51 Priestgate, Peterborough PE1 1LF, from the 8th November to 29th November 2025:
33 Suns and Comet Variations, James Tovey 2025
Colour palette and aesthetic investigations towards embroidery designs
There is so much I would like to write about the making of this exhibition, I have had some difficulty making it into a summary info board or leaflet for the show.
Beyond digital space
It has been immensely enjoyable putting this work together, partly as it brings together a few favourites in terms of art influences, but also has enabled free composition and unhindered direct use of the materials to hand. The concentration on the physical properties of the paint and inclusions has been deliberate. Partly it brings the manifestation of the images forward of a screen and surface, which has a vast appeal to me at the moment. It also adds a sculptural element when the paint is wet, and it also allows for glazing and effects - without the requirement of enslaving them to a space behind the surface that more (using the lay terms) ‘Photographic’ or ‘Figurative’ approaches might.
Themed projects & objects
They are though still pictures of objects: suns (stars), moons, comets. Symbolised, abstracted, derived from paper and wooden models; some painted after researching on the internet, others made from my own photographs using long telephoto lenses on a modern digital camera. A number of the designs are inspired directly form group workshops I have been involved in providing at Westraven Community Garden and the Learning Tree Kindergarten, in both cases the young people’s work has been up on display for visitors to see.
Mysteries of space
2025 has brought a number of exciting physical phenomena together that are to some extent
observable by many of us, and yet distant enough to still be abstract and mysterious:
• We have a number of comets arriving at similar times in the near proximity of the earth andinner planetary solar system,
• We have our own sun emitting large solar storms that are still building in magnitude and may soon or during this exhibition be interacting with the earth.
• An interstellar object, 3i Atlas - possibly a large comet five or more km across - is travelling on past, on a very similar plane to the Earth and the other solar system planets orbiting our sun.
• Betelgeuse, one of the closest supergiant stars to earth and 700 times larger than our sun has been found to have a companion star close by. It is also dimming and brightening in the sky, with this being attributed to sun spots. Although its explosion has been suggested, it is not thought to be occurring imminently.
In his later works the French artist George Braque painted birds, suggesting they were the true free inhabitants of the planet, able to cross national boundaries and roam where they wished. We know of course through studies of bird migrations and their abilities at finding their way, a bird’s roaming ability is more nuanced than total freedom. It could be thought that comets are the universe’s free travellers, transecting vast distances over time periods beyond our human understanding, but they too are subject to explosive, gravitational, thermal and electromagnetic forces from their starting point to their termination in collisions or inclusions into a planetary body, atmosphere or starry inferno.
Creative needlework embroidery kits
During 2024 my wife and I started working on a joint project of putting together embroidery kits in a format that would enable new and more experienced embroiders alike to overcome the three main obstacles to creative needlework; namely the thread colour selection, the guide drawing and the choice of an essential number of stitches any given design could utilise. The subject for first kits would be cosmic inspired as the variety of exciting ideas to draw from is vast and universal to us all. It also followed from my own interests and previous artwork subjects. For example, the ‘33 Suns’ series here was an idea for an exhibition I started discussing with people in 2016 but other projects have got in the way.
The product
So to cut a story short, on display are some of my explorations and ideas on the journey as to how the embroidery compositions, colours and thread combinations came about and could go together - their colour relations and interaction. I wanted to aim towards making alternative aesthetic products so they could be seen side by side, partly so my wife and I could see which felt more appropriate for a particular kit composition and colour scheme and as well to envisage how a kit would feel to live with in a domestic setting.
FAQs
Why paint them? Well making an acrylic painting is measured in hours, day and possibly weeks, whilst making embroideries is measured in magnitudes of days, weeks and months or longer.
Why not make them digitally? The compositions are translated into digital line drawings for the embroidery kits, but a screen cannot give the same physical feeling as the object. The pigments used are perceived differently, as reflected light from granulations, surfaces and translucent compounds behave completely differently from light transmitted from a pixel. The touch, feel and aesthetic magical qualities of previewing an embroidery design are not adequately conveyed from a tablet or screen alone. Some of these designs have already been made into kits; other designs may go no further but have been manifested and given the opportunity to interact on a human scale. A selection of the embroidery kits is available to buy at the exhibition and a wider range at the Peterborough Museum Christmas Fair at the end of November, you can also browse online at www.yellingtreepress.co.uk, for more information and the online shop.
AI could make it? No it can’t. This is for humans.
More paintings will be available online at the end of this exhibition, search for James Tovey artist or Toveyarts on Google.
[caption id="attachment_27222" align="alignnone" width="450"] A photograph of James Tovey artist studio, with two paintings of comets on the easel, 2025[/caption]](https://paos.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Untitled119_20251103083042-800x600.jpg)
