Christina Diekmann

I am a Birchington-based maker who loves working with paper. When I come across a piece of smooth, pristine paper, colourful or craft, I think about what kind of stars, wreaths or baubles I can create out of it.

My inspiration comes from my German heritage and Christmas traditions. I especially love stars - what is better than a star especially when it comes to Christmas time. Creating something beautiful, traditional and timeless is my joy.

I genuinely love learning and can't start quick enough creating all sorts of origami and origami style stars, single or modular, 6, 8 or 16 points, one colour or multicolour.

I hope my passion for paper folding brings joy to others.

Lisa Peru

My name is Lisa. I am a mother, teacher, designer and maker.

Growing up in London, I qualified as a Surface Designer and Lecturer. I then moved to Margate with my partner and son eight years ago.

Crafts and anything creative have always been my passion. Previously I specialised in printed textiles however my interest now lies in glass-fusing and tutoring. A great believer in art therapy, I enjoy encouraging others to be creative and to find something they can be passionate about too.

I moved to Westgate-on-Sea in 2022 and I am very happy to be part of Westgate Galleria.

Nick Howlin

Hi, I'm Nick.

Nick's Knits is a small business run from my home and by me.  Every item you see on my display at Westgate Galleria has been individually designed and handmade by me.

How it all started

Way back in the mists of time (well, the spring of 2018), I was looking for a new hobby, something that would give me the opportunity to channel my creativity. A friend suggested knitting. "Random" I thought ... but hey, why not? So off I went to a local shop and bought some wool and knitting needles, never having knitted before, but with the help of YouTube, I attempted my first scarf. The result wasn't too good. My second wasn't too bad and it continued like that, each time improving bit by bit. Christmas came and a lot of friends received a lot of wool-based presents.

February 2020

It was time for a new challenge.  So, I taught myself to crochet.

2022

It has been quite a couple of years for us all. Now Nick's Knits is a full-fledged business, still run by me from my home.

I now mainly focus on my crocheting. This medium really enables me to create the ideas I have swimming around in my head. Nature in all its forms and glory inspires me along with Scandinavian design. I love the simplicity of scandi design and I like to think that reflects in my pieces.

I can't follow a pattern, it makes my head spin, so everything I make has been designed in my mind, which means I always make original pieces.

Alice Hewitt

Alice Hewitt is a Margate-based sculptor and miniaturist specialising in tiny food.

She takes her inspiriation from food photography.  Also the food grown in her family allotment, that brings such joy to her dinner table.

Thoroughly believing that you can have your cake and eat it too, Alice aims to bring the beauty on your plate to your every day jewellery.

Each pair of earrings is handmade with polymer clay. Each pair is therefore unique and no two designs will ever come out identically.

Maureen Georganou

Hello, I am  Maureen, a Textile Arts (BEd Hons) graduate and a former textiles teacher. I taught for many years in Margate before moving abroad to raise my boys.

My love of textiles and everything handmade was greatly influenced by my very talented Grandmother Ginny. She taught me to knit, crochet and sew as a child. Grandmother Ginny gave me the skills which I developed into a career and a lifelong passion.

I have been designing and making hand crafted items throughout my life, focussing on yarn crafts in recent years due to being unable to source fabrics. I also enjoy recycling and repurposing fabrics and yarn to create unique and bespoke items for all occasions.

My boys are now studying in Canterbury which has given me the opportunity to return to the place I fondly regard as "home".

Gary Dadd

After years of exhibiting art, and serious illness, I became a full-time artist in 2021.  Creating detailed portraits using the written word and fascinated by playing with ideas of seeing and of reading simultaneously.

I have sold art across the globe. In the next twelve months I will be exhibiting in Margate, Cambridge and Los Angeles.

Currently I am working on commissioned pieces and my next exhibition which is themes around cultural and scientific icons drawn on their own words.

Julian Lovegrove

My parents lived in Bromley, Kent where I grew up. My father was an architect and mother an art teacher, who founded the Shortlands Studios. Our resident artist was Peter Midgley RCA. His studio was in our home, alongside the pottery.

I went off to the City to earn "an honest fortune' in Banking and Finance and returned to creative art in 1996. I established an Antique Shop and Gallery in West Malling. After moving to Broadstairs, I became a 'plein air' painter of landscapes and seascapes. I can usually be found in the corner of a muddy field or boatyard. Often perched precariously on the rocks, until darkness or rain takes over.

My inspiration comes in the light and changes in the weather. I admire the work of Hercules Brabazon, John Singer Sergeant, Edward Seago and the French Impressionists.

As a Cultural Ambassador for the Turner Contemporary Gallery and an elected member of the East Kent Art Society I am able to support the local artistic community.  I have represented England at Fabriano in Acquarello Italy.

Jeff Laurents

My Life

Education and the arts have been driving forces in my life for as long as I can remember. Being a people person, I am especially motivated to create works that bring pleasure and meaning to others. After taking a degree in Politics and Economics and a Postgraduate Certificate in Education, I taught in secondary, further and higher education.

Becoming interested in photography in the 1980's I took a part-time degree in Photography at the Polytechnic of Central London.  At the London College of Fashion I established a course in photography. I set up my own darkroom at home and for many years processed and printed my monochrome images.

After my retirement in 1997, I began to specialise in digital photography. Photographing local scenes in various regions in England, especially in Thanet and part of East Kent, but also in London.

I used to sing semi-professionally, and music continues to be a great source of enjoyment. I have lectured on Cinema for the British Film Institute. The histories of art and cinema feed my enjoyment and respect for the past.

In addition to my local scenes I create striking abstract images, landscapes, cityscapes and seascapes.  I have also published a volume of quirky and often dark short stories, "Mysterious Ways".  Written about 12 years ago, in a burst of creative energy, which included designing the cover.

My Work

I work in my studio to create my images. They are made into calendars, greetings cards, postcards and jigsaw puzzles. I printing many of my images, colour and monochrome, up to A2 size, on an Epson printer. I have also recently started to print canvas versions of some of my work. Various retail outlets and galleries stock my work and I sell online.

All my prints are digitally manipulated photographs derived from experimenting and transforming the scenes captured by my camera. A painterly representation is created.

I have painstakingly taught myself to use various software systems, including Adobe Photoshop. Spending hours exploring the amazing possibilities such software affords. As I work, I will reject any version of an image that fails to satisfy my appreciation of what constitutes an artwork. I believe that I have a good "eye" for art and will stand and fall by my works being approved by others.

My approach to image-making is less concerned with "realism", but more about using artifice to create images that please me, and will hopefully appeal to others. Intrigued by colour, line and texture, my influences include the Impressionists, the Fauves, Van Gogh and various film directors and movements.

Production methods

I photograph using a Fuji mirrorless camera system. My iPhone camera is really useful, given its extreme portability and the quality of the lenses.

I use an Epson Sure Colour SC-P900 printer to print my work as fine art Giclee prints.  Giclee prints are archival quality, museum-standard. The paper meets the highest print standards and is archival, acid and lignin free.

Saroj Nelson

A late bloomer, I did my fine art degree at Central St. Martins, London in the 1980s.

Always a keen gardener, I used my creative skills to pursue a career in horticulture.  I started a successful business designing and installing bespoke planting schemes across London.

Alongside my interest in plants, I trained and qualified as an ITEC massage therapist, using essential oils to ease the stresses of my busy clients.

Fulfilling my dream to live by the sea, I moved with my partner John, to coastal Kent in 2009.

Combining passion, knowledge and enthusiasm, I began developing an all-natural skincare range during the first lockdown.  I use therapeutic plant-based ingredients, beeswax, vitamin E and sweet almond oil, to uplift and nourish both body and mind.

All Stone Bay Skincare products are free from artificial colours, perfumes and preservatives. All come in plastic-free packaging.  They are cruelty-free, contain only beneficial natural ingredients and are, of course, handmade in Kent.

Planet-friendly and suitable for all naturally thinking people.

Nick Kelly

I was born in Whitstable, Kent in 1951. After a few enjoyable years travelling, I trained as a teacher, specialising in Drama and Media. Working as a volunteer teacher in Egypt with VSO in 1975, I began my love of Arabic and the Middle East. I took up a post in Qatar in 1977 where I continued to live for twenty-three years.  In 2000 I came back to the UK and worked as a freelance newsreader with the BBC World Service.  I now work at home in Whitstable, devoting my time to painting and writing. Single Man Dancing Alone is my second book, the sequel to The House of Fortune.

My paintings are mainly concerned with the coast. Having grown up by the sea in Whitstable, I find the sea a constant source of inspiration for my paintings. Over the last twenty years I have produced work that is both figurative and more impressionistic. Many of my larger canvases are towards the abstract. Very often I sketch by the sea and then when I'm back in the studio my imagination runs riot.

Lately I've been working on a series of pen and watercolour sketches from my walks around the Kent coast from the Isle of Sheppey to the border of Kent and East Sussex at Dungeness. I find myself drawn to the emptiness of deserted beaches, probably due to my earlier career in the Middle East and its vast deserts. Previously painting empty landscapes but now I include figures, perhaps only just one. I like exploring the relationship of the land and humanity from a single walker alone with his thoughts, to the mass gatherings of beach lovers at Margate and Broadstairs. It's all fascinating.

Aaron Reeves

Hello, my name is Aaron Reeves and I am a local artist. I worked in the film and TV industry in London for six years, then my wife and I decided to move down to the Kent coast. Change of career and I am now an art teacher in Whitstable.

Having always enjoyed focussing on natural forms and landscapes in my artwork I find the coast has so much to offer. Recently I have been experimenting with digital arts. Liking the clean-cut lines and block colours, which I use to make the landscape pop and come to life. I dabble in different mediums, from oil and watercolour paintings, lino prints and etchings.

I look forward to sharing my work with you.

Michele Papageorghiou

Michele Papageorghiou – also known as Mrs P – has always had a passion for art and craft. During the August Summer Holidays she would usually undertake a project.  Whether it be mosaicking tables, (even the garage), making ceramics, fusing glass to make jewellery, or decorating garden objects.

Having retired from working as a local primary school teacher, Michele found time to enjoy Thanet’s beautiful scenery.  She was also able to undertake activities at a more leisurely pace, allowing her to experiment with alternative artistic styles.

Margate - Under the influence… (aka MUTI) was the first in Michele's series of local seascape paintings, paying homage to Van Gogh and Hokusai.

After receiving compliments from family and friends Michele plucked up the courage to approach her local gallery owners.   Sarah and Vivienne of Shoreline Partners provided impartial feedback and were enthusiastic about MUTI, and its potential appeal to others. Michele took the plunge and had her MUTI painting made into a greetings card.   Next came a giclee print which is available framed and unframed. MUTI prints and cards  are very popular with the galleries' clients.

Broadstairs (BUTI) and Westgate (WUTI) editions have now joined Michele's series of Under The Influence paintings.  With prints and cards available at Westgate Galleria and The Eclectic Art Gallery.  Also available online.

Michele is one of the resident group of artists exhibiting at The Eclectic Art Gallery.

Wilfred Jenkins

Wilfred is an autistic and deaf photographer who specialises in nature and wildlife. He lives in Westgate-on-Sea in Thanet in Kent, UK

Max Sheppard

I work with wood, predominantly found on local beaches and marshland.  I use other materials such as plastics and metal. My wall-based reliefs are abstract in appearance and often boxy and angular in design.  They are loosely based around my architecturally-inspired drawings.  I like the shape and condition when it comes to composition..  Other characteristics of the materials play a significant part in my direction. Though there is an architectural link with my methodical working technique, there is limited planning prior to constructing a piece, which I go about in quite an abstract manner. Paint and other artistic mediums are applied to select areas of the work, with coverage varying from piece to piece. The nature of the materials determine the colour palette to build a theme and achieve a balance or even intentional clash of man-made and natural.

John Wiltshire

Hello, I am 76 and I write children’s books. I moved to Westgate from Dartford 40 years ago. Before I retired I worked in St. Crispin’s Infant School as the caretaker for 16 years. It was while working there that I had this idea for a series of children’s stories set in an infant school. This idea then grew into what I now call The Mystery Door stories but it wasn’t until I retired that I really considered writing them.

Then like most people, I needed something to do during the recent lockdowns and I began to write my stories. My first book has now been published, and it is called The Mystery Door and The Magic Lamp. I have five other stories in this series and I do hope to get them all published some day.

Gem Blastock

Hi, I'm Gem Blastock, an artist based in Broadstairs, specialising in Pointillism and Screen Printing.

Using my own abundance of illustrations as the foundation to my print work, I draw inspiration from my surroundings and our native coastline. Through my unique skill of dot drawing I create powerful realistic illustrations, reflecting my own story of growing up on the Thanet Coast in Kent.  I also help raise awareness of our unique chalk coastline.

I have always been creative, since I was small and have had the urge to draw and paint. Remembering getting my first patterned rubber stamp set and soon becaming obsessed with arranging these stamps so the print patterns were in line, to then happily colour them in. This was the beginning of my journey in print and pattern, leading me to Bucks New University to study and graduate (in 2004) in Textiles Design, specialising in interior print design.

I have a small brand, Turquoise Gem Home, creating a range of environmentally conscious nostalgic home and giftware products through the power of hand-printing, which I am selling at Westgate Galleria.

Home is where the story begins.....

Nicola Taylor

Painting and the seaside have always been my passions. From a young age, I was happiest with a paintbrush in my hand or splashing about in the sea. I see the world around me in colour, shape and pattern. My paintings are vibrant because I have always admired bold and colourful art which catches your eye.

Beautiful coastlines provide perfect inspiration for my paintings. I live in between Margate and Broadstairs and have many beautiful bays on my doorstep. I am constantly inspired by the beautiful Thanet coastline. This unique landscape, with its ever-changing skies and seas, provides a perfect subject for me to paint. As a local artist, I am forever taking photos as I explore the area, mesmerised by yet another dramatic sky or sea. The beauty of nature means that these are never the same, thus providing endless opportunities.

I base my work on photographs taken of the local area. I play around with shape and colours to create a unique representation of the landscape. I use acrylics to paint bright and colourful seascapes on large canvases. Acrylic paint enables me to create dynamic shapes with vivid colour. I use flat brushes to create smooth surfaces and clean lines.

Susie Darnton

Jayne Wright

I have been potting for 22 years. I was taught by Romilly Graham in her London studio. I mostly hand build and work with moulds in stoneware and porcelain.

I am concerned about how disposable our society has become, we have so much unnecessary packaging and most of us guilt-cycle. I use my ceramic making to raise awareness and challenge these habits by making pieces that I hope people will want to reuse and keep. I use disposable plastic packaging and bric-a-brac from charity shops to press mould ceramic pieces. I also take plaster casts from some disposable objects and make permanent pieces from porcelain slip. I use oxides and stoneware glazes. I mostly twice-fire in an electric kiln but occasionally once-fire and very occasionally experiment with Raku firing.

Since moving to Margate I have been lino cutting images of local iconic buildings and printing into clay adding another dimension to my work.

I add sea glass and ceramics to some of my pieces that I find on the Viking Coast, I record where I find the glass under the pot.

I also make big pieces with reclaimed clay that reflect how beautiful our Kent Coast is. It is important to me that my work reflects sustainability and has a gentle message.

David Wadmore

I am a letterpress printer, typographer and publications designer creating cards and designs with my iron press, built in 1831, and vintage wood type, ancient blocks and the occasional piece of lino. As everything is hand printed, no two items are the same, ensuring that every one of my cards and prints is unique. I ink, therefore I am!