Falling Light: Paintings by Bryan Hanlon, Lawrence Quigley & Jenny Sutton

Falling Light brings together the work of three artists with different approaches to observing and expressing the world and the fleeting impressions it leaves behind.

Bryan Hanlon’s landscapes and still life paintings are attentive to the visual qualities of the everyday, finding interest in the shifting relationships between light, colour, form and place. 

Lawrence Quigley’s gestural landscapes respond more intuitively to the landscape, using movement, colour and painterly marks to evoke the energy and atmosphere of a particular place. 

Jenny Sutton’s still life paintings turn our attention to the intimate and familiar, exploring light, colour, shape and the quiet spaces between things.

Together, the three practices offer distinct ways of seeing. From the closely observed to the expressive, Falling Lightconsiders how painting can capture a fleeting moment of light, atmosphere or perception—and how something familiar can become newly seen.

Bryan Hanlon

Hanlon lives and works in rural Wiltshire, surrounded by the landscape that continues to inspire his work. His career has included exhibitions in the UK and internationally, with his work shown at venues including Nature in Art in Gloucester, Tryon & Swann in London, and the prestigious Birds in Art exhibition in Wisconsin, USA.

Although birds have been an important and enduring subject throughout his career, Hanlon’s current practice focuses increasingly on still life and landscape painting. His experience of working closely with the natural world informs his attentive observation of light, colour, form and the character of his surroundings.

Alongside his painting, Hanlon is an accomplished sculptor, particularly known for his bronze studies of birds. His work is held in collections in the UK and abroad, and his travels through Europe, America and Africa have provided a rich source of inspiration for both his paintings and sculpture.

Lawrence Quigley

Quigley grew up in Birkenhead and studied Fine Art at Loughborough University before completing a Master’s degree at the Royal Academy Schools in London. He has since maintained a career as a painter and teacher, exhibiting widely in London and regional galleries.

Working primarily in oil, Quigley’s practice encompasses landscape, figurative painting and still life. His landscapes are expressive and gestural, using light, colour, structure and the physical qualities of paint to evoke the mood and atmosphere of a place. Rather than simply describing the landscape, his paintings capture something of its sensory and emotional character.

Quigley’s work has received several awards, including the Turner Gold Medal and British Institution Fund award, and his paintings are held in public and private collections in the UK and abroad.

Jenny Sutton

Still life has been Jenny Sutton’s main focus for more than 20 years. She finds continual delight in combining the many pieces of china, baskets and terracotta that fill her studio and kitchen with flowering plants, fruit and vegetables found in the market.

Her still life paintings are worked slowly and with close attention to design and composition. Light and shadow play an important role, while a deliberately limited colour palette creates a sense of calm and harmony.

Fascinated by shape, colour and texture, paint is applied using palette knives, brushes and rags. At times the outline remains visible as part of the image; at others, it becomes absorbed into the body of the paint.

Although her source material comes from sketches and photographs made on location, most of Sutton’s work is produced in the studio, where observation is transformed through a considered and painterly process.