Recent Exhibitions and Artistic Activities 2025

– Courtyard Arts Winter Members Show, Port Vale, Hertford.(25 Nov – 23 Dec 2025)

– The ING The Discerning Eye exhibition, The Mall Galleries, London ( 14 to 23 November 2025)

-“The 7th Aldenham Art Festival”, St John the Baptist Church, Aldenham, Hertfordshire. (11th-14th + 19th – 21st September, 2025)

-“Canvas 25 Exhibition” Various artists, Courtyard Arts Gallery, Hertford. ( 3rd – 14th June 2025)

-“The Letchworth Open”, Broadway Gallery, Letchworth. (11th June – 26th July 2025)

-“Firm Foundations: St Albans School of Art” Exhibition Part One  (15oth anniversary celebration exhibition of historic significance) Weston Gallery, St Albans Museum + Gallery. Curated by UH Arts + Culture, University of Hertfordshire. A major group exhibition showcasing several generations of artists, designers staff, students, individuals in myriad ways. ( 23rd May – 21st September 2025)

– Cornish Painting Trip: Falmouth, St Ives, Porthleven, and Mevagissey ( 14th – 23rd April 2025)

-“The 18th Courtyard Open Exhibition”, Courtyard Arts Gallery, Port Vale, Hertford. (5th April- 3rd May 2025)

-Attended  The Art:Sci Symposium, held at St Albans Museum and Art Gallery, St Albans (26th March, 2025 ) + visited “Mind + Matter : Towards Co-Creation Exhibition” by Art: Sci Research Lab and UH Arts +Culture (University of Hertfordshire)

-“The Hertford Art Trail 2025”: Lanes, Hertford Town Centre  + Courtyard Arts Gallery (4th- 26th April, 2025)

-“Women of Culture- Celebrating Women in the Cultural Sector “ Networking + Celebratory Event.  Elgiva Theatre, Chesham. Buckinginghamshire Culture. (March 16th 2025)

-“Past, Present, and Future “Exhibition,  (The Brick Project)  Historical exhibition of The  Courtyard Arts Gallery, Hertford. (7th -18th January 2025)

-“New Year”  Exhibition, The Open Door Gallery and Centre, Berkhamsted (1-20th January 2025)

 

Recent Exhibitions/ Artistic Activities 2024 :

– “Wonderful Winter” Exhibition.” The Open Door Gallery and Centre, Berkhamstead. ( 4th November- 31st December 2024)

-A Letter In Mind: “The Wonder of Colour” Exhibition. Gallery Different, Fitzrovia, London W1. (29th Oct-2nd November 24). on-line (29th -30th October, 2024)

-“Childhood Lost” (Solo Exhibition) The Stables Gallery, Courtyard Arts, Port Vale, Hertford. (22nd Oct- 16 Nov 24)

-“North Mymms Arts Festival”, St Marys Church, North Mymms, Hatfield. (11th -20th October 2024)

-“The Living Memories Project – Memories of St Albans School of Art” (May – Oct 2024) . A Collaborative Project with The University of Hertfordshire’s Department of Arts and Culture including a Publication of The History of St Albans School of Art, Original Artworks, Written Memories, Shared Information, and an Oral History Recording for University Archives. 2024

-“Aldenham Art Festival”, St Mary’s Church, Aldenham, Herts (Sept 8th, 12th-15th & 20th-22nd 2024)

-“Reflections of Summer Exhibition” The Open Door Gallery, Berkhamsted ( Sept – Nov 2024)

-“The Letchworth Open 2024 Exhibition” The Broadway Gallery, Letchworth (18th Sept- 9th Nov 2024)

-“Mannequins Exhibition” – Courtyard Arts Gallery, Hertford. ( 22nd April- May- 2024)

-“Hertford Art Trail : Mannequins Exhibition” The Brothership Gallery, Bull Plain,Hertford (6th-20th April, 2024)

-“Starting Point Inspired by Hockney and Miro Exhibition” Courtyard Arts Gallery, Hertford. (4th Feb-2nd March 2024)

 

Biography:

Contemporary UK artist Mandy Newman was born in Watford and grew up there, and in Bushey. After completing a Foundation diploma at Watford School of Art (where her Course Leader was the late Peter Schmidt). She then studied for a further five years at St. Albans School of Art (Herts. College of Art & Design, now University of Hertfordshire) as a student of the painter , Graham Boyd. Mandy Newman graduated with a First Class Honours degree twice: Once in Fine Art (University of Hertfordshire 1991) and afterwards winning a major prize in the UK’s New Graduates Painting Competition at The National Fine Art Degree Show Exhibition (London, 1992) and once in Creative Writing (Bucks New University 2012) where she also won three Major Awards for ‘Academic Excellence’ (including the prestigious: Hewlett Packard-Bell’s “Most Inspiring Student Award,” “The Most Distinguished Performance on an Undergraduate Degree Programme,” and “The Most Distingulshed Performance in the Dissertation – School of Journalism, Script, & Performance.”) After graduating in Fine Art she qualified in Further and Higher Adult Education and taught in colleges, and was Adult Art Lecturer for the Open College of the Arts at the University of Hertfordshire’s Hatfield Campus. She also holds a NAFAS Diploma in Floral Art & Design. In 1992 she was invited to join The Free Painters and Sculptors Group and was awarded Full Membership entitling her to show work in The Loggia Gallery, London. In 1996, she was made an ‘Honorary Fellow of the Free Painters and Sculptors’ in recognition of the consistently high standard of her work. A strong life-long believer in professional artistic workshops, she has consistently taken part in myriad high-quality workshops in the fields of: Fine Art, Creative Writing for example in: Literary Fiction, Poetry, Screenwriting, Folk Singing, and Playwriting +Directing for the Stage. These many inputs from other creative genres have nourished and extended development of her Fine Art practice. Mandy Newman has exhibited widely, and her work is held in many public and private art collections and has sold at auction.

 

Artist’s Statement:                            

“Works of art are Story. Stories become lives. There can be no understanding or meaning without a story of some kind.” –  Mandy Newman 2024.

Everything has narrative. Story follows everywhere, encircling every event and experience. Life is interpreted, and meaning extracted, following thought, and action or inaction. We sift and sort through every occurrence to create a narrative that fits with our own band of concepts which is then honed and shaped according to our attributes and early experiences. Understanding and making sense of the world comes later, with the creation of memories, anxieties and hopes about a possible future. As an artist, the creation of story inhabits the ground on which I paint or draw. I may create an obscure abstract mark, or a more transparent figuration of an event or snapshot in time, but nevertheless, there’s still some kind of narrative occurs as I create an artwork which may, (or may not) be clear to a viewer who’ll bring their own story to a painting, and overlay the original one from the artist. Critics, curators, reviewers, historians, theoreticians, and gallerists also overlay the artist’s tale, and so a work of art expands its dimensions and the worlds it encapsulates, for its audience. This is the mystery- life of a picture. It develops aspects to stories contained within it that expand and contract according to who the viewers are. Of course, we could, perhaps, return to the minimalist values of late modernism, and take the critic Clement Greenberg’s aesthetic to describe a painting by formal elements only (what you see is what you get) for example: colour, line, texture, light, contrast, form, shape, depth, and surface and this may seem to be a very rational approach. Indeed, it’s one that the US Abstract Expressionists and Colour field artists of the 1950s -70s remained largely true to. But I see a wider map for my own art now, which builds onto this solid ground and mixes imaginative narrative and memories, symbols, and literal motifs more figuratively and more openly, to share stories. Abstraction has always served me well for a pictorial language that remains highly private: its true meaning reserved in essence just for the painter, and yet there is more to be added to my story, and whether that’s in abstraction or figurative techniques, the many episodes of art which chronicle and detail parts of my world continue on.– Mandy Newman 2024

 

Selected Solo Exhibitions:

2024 – “Childhood Lost”  Solo Exhibition, The Stables Gallery, Courtyard Arts, Port Vale, Hertford.

1996 – “The Birthday” Solo Exhibition, Watford Museum & Art Gallery.

1995 – “Pabulum” Solo Exhibition, The Old Town Hall Arts Centre, Hemel Hempstead, Herts.

1994 – “Residence” Solo Exhibition, Boxmoor, Hemel Hempstead, (Herts. Open Studios)

1993 – “Seaside Donkeys ” Solo Exhibition, Boxmoor, Hemel Hempstead, (Herts. Open Studios)

1993 – “Eucharistos” Solo Exhibition, the Boxfield Gallery, Stevenage.

1992 – “The Box of Recall”  Solo Exhibition, Boxmoor, Hemel Hempstead, (Herts. Open Studios).

 

Selected Group Exhibitions, 2&3 Artist Shows, Artistic Activites and Events : 

2025 – “Firm Foundations: St Albans School of Art Exhibition”, St Albans Museum and Gallery.

2024- ” Hertford Arts Trail Artists Exhibition”, The Brothership Gallery, Bulls Plain, Hertford.

2024 – “Starting Point Inspired by Hockney and Miro Exhibition” Courtyard Arts Gallery,Port Vale, Hertford. With original handmade prints by Hockney + Miro

2024 – “The Letchworth Open” The Broadway Gallery, Letchworth

2024 – “The Living Memory Project – Memories of St Albans School of Art”  (May – Oct 24) A Collaborative Project with University of Hertfordshire (Dept. of Arts & Culture) including:   A Publication of the History of St Albans School of Art, Original Artworks, Written Memories, Shared information, and an Oral History Recording for the University Archives.

2023 “A Letter in Mind 23: Changing Perspectives” Gallery Different, Fitzrovia, London W1 

2023- “The Letchworth Open Art Exhibition”, The Broadway Gallery, Letchworth.

2023- “Home Exhibition hyh” St Albans Visual Arts Festival, the Collective Gallery, St Albans.

2023 – “The Moore + Mining Research Symposium + Henry Moore Drawing in the Dark Exhibition” St Albans Museum + Art Gallery & Dept of Arts + Culture,     University of Hertfordshire.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

2023 – “Discover Bucks Museum & Art Gallery Open Exhibition” Aylesbury, Bucks.

2022 “The Art of Grieving” Selected Exhibition, St Albans Museum & Art Gallery.

2021 “A Letter in Mind:Making Your Mark”National Brain Appeal Exhibition, National Hospital Dev. London WC1

2009-2012 -Creative Writing BA (Hons) Degree ( First Class) : 3 Awards for Academic  Excellence + Major Prizes. Bucks New University.

2008-2009 – Participant in writing courses + events various venues including: Queen’s Park Art Centre, Dacorum College, Oxford University’s Dept. of Continuing Education+ multiple workshops inc: Creative Writing for Screen, The Graham Greene Festival (William Ivory) Berkhamsted, and in “Writing for the Stage” (Matt Hartley RSC) The Oxford Playhouse. 2007 2004 – “Central + South American Streetchild Project”: Artwork, Stories & Poetry published: Artwork pub. in two calendars +Poetry performance  at the Radlett Theatre.

2002 – Grassroots Zimbabwean Visual Arts Project & Touring Show: Grassroots Zimbabwean Cultural Exchange Project: Old Town Hall Arts Centre, Hemel Hempstead.

2000 – “Artists Community Millennium Commemorative Book Project” Margaret Harvey Gallery, then touring other venues.

2000 -“Framing Time” Exhibition: Artworks Group, The Margaret Harvey Gallery, St Albans School of Art, Herts College of Art+Design (University of Hertfordshire), St Albans.

1997 -“Black, White, & Grey”Exhibition (FPS) The Loggia Gallery, London SW1.  

1997 -“Selected FPS Artists Exhibition” Royal Birmingham Society of Artists Gallery, Birmingham.

1997 -“Honorary Fellows Exhibition”: The Loggia Gallery, London SW1.

1996 -“Paintings, Prints, & Drawings”: (Artworks Exhibition) Boxfield Gallery, Stevenage.

1996  – “13 Artists in the Crypt”Exhibition, St Martin-in-the-Fields Church, Trafalgar Square, London WC2N.

1995 – “Image & Interpretation”: Herts Visual Arts Forum Painter’s Group Exhibition, Boxfield Gallery, Stevenage.

1995  – “The Eastern Open Exhibition”: Fermoy Gallery, King’s Lynn Arts Centre, Norfolk.

1995 – “In Two Minds Exhibition” (Two artists) The Knapp Gallery, Regents Park, The Inner Circle, London NW1.

1994 –  Artists’ Intensive Residential Workshop Week: with invited participating artists attending from Poland, the Royal College of Art, and Year of ’91 St Albans Graduates Collective.     Bury St Edmonds, Suffolk.

1994 – “Artworks Group Spring Show” University of Hertfordshire, The Fielder Centre, Hatfield.

1994 – “Art For Mayfair” (Three Artist Exhibition), 20 Grosvenor Street,Mayfair, London W1.

1993  -“The Creators”  (FPS ) Group Exhibition, Bourne Hall, Ewell.

1992  – “Connecting Lines”: An English/Dutch Symposium organisers: Graham Boyd, Head of Fine Art, University of Hertfordshire (UK) and Wim Vonk, Head of Fine Art ,Gerrit Rietveld Academie (Netherlands) with critques of artworks, and exhibitions in England + Netherlands: Guest artists: Mark Curran (Installation) Kate Davis, (Mixed Media, The Royal College) + Eileen Cooper OBE RA

 – “Connecting Lines Exhibition I “The Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam, Netherlands.

 – “Connecting Lines Exhibition II” The Margaret Harvey Gallery, St Albans School of Art.

1992 – “Three Painters” Exhibition”, Lauderdale House, Highgate, London N6

1992 – “Fresh Art” The National Fine Art Degree Fair (Prize-winner)  The Business Design Centre, Islington, London N1.

1992 – ” The Eastern Open Exhibition”: King’s Lynn Arts Centre. 1992 University of Hertfordshire Graduate Show, Smith Galleries, Covent Garden, London WC2.

1980 – Indian Mural Project: Private Commision: Sutton Road, Watford, Herts Approx.(4′ x75 linear feet) . 

1979 -Foundation Show : (With participating students and Course Leader, Peter Schmidt) Watford School of Art, Ridge Street, Watford, Herts.