Intrepid women have put their love of Oxfordshire's waterways are staging a pop-up exhibition in Banbury

A group of seven women - all professional artists - have concentrated images of their love of Oxfordshire's waterways in a pop-up exhibition over three weekends at Banbury's Castle Quay Shopping Centre.
Artworks of many kinds will be exhibited at the Just Add Water show in Castle Quay over the next three weekendsArtworks of many kinds will be exhibited at the Just Add Water show in Castle Quay over the next three weekends
Artworks of many kinds will be exhibited at the Just Add Water show in Castle Quay over the next three weekends

The women - naming themselves the FMCollective - met on a course at Oxfordshire Visual Arts Development Agency (OVADA) in Oxford. They are Juliet Bankes, Lisa Bates, Clare Crombie, Gabriele Kern, Marina Price, Louise Shaw and Gill White. All are mixed media artists with their own individual specialities.

Gill White said: "Having worked together for a collaborative project for the Pitt Rivers Museum exhibition, ‘Intrepid Women’, we formed a collective at the beginning of the pandemic.

"Living the length and breadth of the county, chances to meet have been limited until Castle Quay provided us with the opportunity to put on our first show.

"We are seven women aged from 32 - 82. Being so far from the sea, we have all had lockdown cravings to visit the waterways of Oxfordshire, Banbury, the canal and River Cherwell, which have been the inspiration for our Just Add Water exhibition, where work in mixed media includes print making, ceramics, textiles, video, 2D and 3D."

As they contemplate the possibilities of post-Covid life, the artists look forward to engaging in the creative process safely with visitors, shoppers and passers-by. Some of the art works will be on sale.

The show will be mounted in the former Hotter shop opposite the canal side entrance to the shopping centre from July 2 - July 18. It will be open at the weekends with the artists present to discuss their work on Fridays and Saturdays from 12pm - 5pm and on Sundays from 11am - 4pm.

The exhibition has been sponsored by sponsored by Senecio Print.