Rachel Hill

Rachel Hill is a freelance artist, songwriter, and choir director based in St Neots. Her music has been featured across regional and national radio, including BBC Radio 1. Rachel was awarded ‘Best Acoustic Act’ at this year’s Cambridge Bands Competition 2025. She is set to complete her third international solo tour this year. As a live performer, Rachel is best known for the captivating use of her vocal loop pedal, creating enchanting performances with layers of live-recorded harmonies. Having only recently moved to the area, Rachel is excited to be a part of the Neotists community and to connect with other local creatives. So if you are reading this, click on one of her social media links and say hi!

Michael Murfin

Michael is a painter, draughtsman and teacher, born in St Neots, Cambridgeshire. He studied at Leicester Polytechnic, Trent Polytechnic, Nottingham and Birmingham Polytechnic, then worked in a timber yard in St Neots.

During the 1980s Murfin participated in Artist in School schemes in Cambridgeshire and nearby counties, in 1983 gaining a major award from Eastern Arts Association. In 1990 he was visiting lecturer at University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada, and artist-in-resident at Oundle School.

Michael has also shown his work more locally in St Neots, Huntingdon, Peterborough and in one of his favourite exhibition spaces — The Yarrow Gallery at Oundle School in Northamptonshire (where he has been Artist in Residence on three occasions). More recently he has been supported by Woodbine Contemporary Arts in Spalding and Uppingham.

Hilary Murfin

Hilary is an artist, craftsperson and designer who started to revive and extend her drawing skills through the observation of plants in her somewhat wild garden. She looks for the extraordinary in the ordinary; all the better for being nearby since mobility issues and arthritic hands have obliged her to redirect her creativity. Hilary’s handcrafted papier mache vessels that she began making around ten years ago have unfortunately been discontinued.

Paul Muir

Paul Muir is an artist and drama therapist, living and working in St Neots. Professionally trained at Newcastle Polytechnic, Leeds University and St Albans College of Art and Design. Paul now dedicates his time to portraying the beauty and meaning we experience in the people and landscapes we encounter.

His history is in applying drama therapy theory with groups and individuals with children of all ages. Believing that play leads to an enriched understanding of ourselves and others. His work has largely been in schools and colleges in Yorkshire, Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire.

Presently his art studio is a Narrowboat on The Great Ouse where he draws his inspiration.

Melina La Firenze

Melina La Firenze is an artist and philosophy teacher living and working in St Neots. Born in Italy and brought up in London. She is self-taught and has been a painter all her life. Her paintings have been exhibited in London and Barcelona. She curated a gallery in Barcelona. She has also done a wide range of restoration work; colour restorations of 16th century to modern paintings, and restorations of sculpture and furniture.

Her artistic work is an attempt to give nature such as trees and animals a voice through the paintings working primarily in oils. She also takes regular commissions for portrait work.

She facilitates philosophical enquiry with primary school children and has made several films documenting their dialectic discourse covering all sorts of subjects from infinity to socialism.

Paul Pibworth

Paul Pibworth is an artist and sculptor who left school in 1979 and found himself starting working life as an apprentice sheet metalworker. He worked for a number of companies before stepping out on his own designing and manufacturing bespoke, furniture, fittings and artefacts.

Paul found that he had a talent for making things and that he could coax the idea from his clients concept right through to completion. At this stage in his career he leapt back into education, firstly taking a HND in 3D design in Bedford, followed by a BA in Spatial Arts and Arts Management at London Metropolitan University. Hosted within the architectural school he studied alongside and was encouraged to collaborate with the architectural students.

Maria Merridan

Maria Merridan is a Bedfordshire-based artist and printmaker and part-time lecturer in art and design. Her work is about creating unusual relationships between personal experiences and the following themes: science, natural history, navigation, weather and journeys.

Awarded The Peoples Award in 2015 for an artwork titled ‘Making Materials Come Alive’ – a large, mixed-media composition produced for Cambridge’s Pint of Science Festival in collaboration with group leader at the Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy at Cambridge University, Dr Stoyan Smoukov.

Maria’s work was recently selected by the Circus of Illustration to exhibit in their Love Conquers All Exhibition and in 2015, was selected for Summer Exhibitions at Courtyard Art Gallery, Hertford and The Babylon Gallery, Ely. She has also exhibited with the arts collective Mark 5 at the Michael Heseltine Gallery in Oxford and Courtyard Art Gallery in Hertford.

Oliver Winconek

Oliver Winconek was born in Bedford, England. Having chosen to not go down the route of formal Art education; he is primarily self taught. His work is always based around people, cities or a combination of both. Over the years Oliver’s work has continuously evolved ranging from bold, graphical cityscapes, pen and ink drawings and Oil painted portraits. He prefers to let his working style be semi dictated by the subject matter that he is portraying, this allows him to have an organic method towards his work that keeps things interesting for both the Artist and the viewer.

Oliver has exhibited all over the world including the Saatchi gallery and his work is held in many private collections.

“I am fascinated by people and the everyday, those situations and moments that we all encounter on a frequent basis that often hold no obvious significance or resonance. The fleeting  happenings that we take for granted are those that I like to use as a subject matter. I love experimenting with colour and pushing the boundaries of an image to increase interest. I now work pretty solidly in Oil, creating both portrait and figurative work as well as cityscapes that reflect the charging buzz that you only get from a massive group of strangers inhabiting the same outdoor space or building. My daily inspiration comes from people I meet and the scenes that I discover, I find it very satisfying documenting elements of the world and the people within it via the medium of paint.”

Vicki Clark

Vicki Clark is a talented artist and illustrator who has now launched her own creative business. Vicki can offer anything from a small sketch of your beloved pet up to a huge statement piece for your home, business reception area, party, wedding or corporate event. Contemporary and modern, or more traditional, Vicki has it all, plus graphic design services. Visit Vicki’s blog for the latest news.

Jessie Stringer

Jessie Stringer recently graduated from studying architecture at Falmouth University and is also an artist in her own right. Co-curating her first exhibition entitled Her Perspective earlier this year, she has taken part in various art fairs, art direction roles, and connects creatively predominantly through social media. Her work revolves around abstraction of portraiture and form through sculpture, painting and instillation with themes of mental health and femininity. Jessie is actively seeking painting and sculpture commissions whilst looking to get involved with local creative endeavours.

Jelena Jordanovic-Lewis

Jelena Jordanovic-Lewis is an illustrator, born in Yugoslavia and grew up in Germany. She learnt art when she was young from a classical Serbian artist but she focussed on science in her studies and has only just recently returned to her passion of drawing and painting. Jelena’s main focus is illustrating children’s books and creating cute adorable characters using watercolour. Jelena lives with her brave, adventurous baby girl and her lovely husband in St Neots but tends to move where the winds of life take her.

Georgina Manning

Georgina Manning is an artist who works mostly with paint, but also installation and digital media. With 17 years’ experience of working with children, young people and communities in a variety of settings, Georgina has been responsible for organising and supporting a range of projects and events.

With a focus on using art to help raise confidence and bring people together. Keen to break down barriers to art, she is currently involved in projects in Huntingdon, working to increase arts engagement in the area.

Alongside her own practice, she also offers private tuition and runs art workshops for different events including children’s parties.

Joshua Cadogan

Joshua Cadogan is an aspiring concept artist, who loves world-building and telling stories through digital painting. For the last five year’s he has been travelling and volunteering abroad and now wants to tell some stories. He is most excited about finding exactly what makes my client’s projects come alive and what makes their world worth exploring. Joshua is interested in the next trend of atmospheric and ambient virtual reality games and believes how stories are told in the games world is about to be the next big space for creating worlds and storytelling tools

Diana Scarborough

Diana Scarborough is a Cambridge-based artist-engineer whose collaborative practice is inherently cross-discipline with technology and the contextual bias. She takes her inspiration from research and science, working with world leaders in the fields of astronomy, nano-biotechnology materials and space weather data with an eco-focus. Diana is currently collaborating with British Antarctic Survey, Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology, University of Cambridge, and the School of Music at the Australian National University.

Sara Sturgeon

Sara Sturgeon is an artist and sculptor who works with pencil and charcoal, her work often starts from observation of tree portraits, people portraits, dogs and horses.

Ivy Fung

Ivy Fung is an environmental graphic, signage and wayfinding designer, artist and illustrator. She has an artistic mind with an adventurous spirit, Ivy’s creations are embodiments of history, heritage and technology. Currently, she is a freelance graphic designer.

She has about 14 years of experience in environmental branding and signage and wayfinding in Hong Kong before relocating to St Neots. She worked in a Hong Kong developer and worldwide architectural and interior design firms before. Her projects covered different disciplines like culture, shopping mall, workplace, hospitality and entertainment.

She is innovative and contributed to creative and original design solutions. She works from conceptual design and develops it until completion. She has the good interpersonal skill within the project team and has a good sense of space to design and locate environmental branding graphics.

Ivy is also an artist and likes to experiment with a range of mediums and formats of expression, from public art to video and illustrations. She is also featured in Hong Kong Eye, one of the world’s most important publications showcasing Hong Kong artists.

Kevin Gavaghan

Kevin Gavaghan is a self-taught artist, originally from North London but now works from his studio in Cambridgeshire. His work is brooding and evocative figurative paintings dancing around the fringes of surrealism and abstract art. He predominantly paints in oils, drawing inspiration from his own life and the deeper connections with people he has encountered throughout his life.

Kevin has had Tourette Tics and anxiety-related conditions since he was 12 years old that continued throughout his life. Approximately 20 years ago he developed an eye condition called Central Serous Retinopathy (CSR) which can distort his vision by producing fluid on his retina.

He chose to embrace this in his art, and like his vision, Kevin’s use of bold vibrant colours distort and bend his figures and portraits to the point of abstraction which, for Kevin, highlights the multi-layers of life and our inner emotions rather than the external likeness of his subject.

He creates organically and his paintings continue to develop throughout the process often changing their personality many times before settling on what he believes reflects a truth within his thoughts. His paintings directly confront the viewer with honesty often reflecting their own life, feelings and emotional thoughts the viewer may keep hidden from public view.

He work has sold internationally and he has had a number of exhibitions around London, Norfolk, Hertfordshire, and Sussex.

Jack Henderson-Scott

I’m an artist who enjoys exploring many different styles of creativity, from Impressionist pieces, to electronic music, to doodles and sketches of cats. I paint portraits and landscapes of real and fictional subjects. Typically, I focus on nature and lighting in my works, but, being heavily influenced by the internet, include a lot of absurd elements as well.

Currently, I am studying Art and Design at the College of West Anglia, and plan to continue my studies further.
I can be contacted at jack.hendersonscott@gmail.com for any questions.

Dr Helen Hale

Helen is an artist who delights in portraying natural world subjects in a variety of media. She has developed her skills over a number of years and now tends to specialise in animals and birds, often giving the subject a wonderfully expressive facial expression. Helen is a Fellow of the Zoological Society of London, with experience which serves to enhance her deep understanding and appreciation of the natural world.  She is equally at home using pencils, pastels, or watercolours on art paper, or acrylics and oils on canvas.

Until now, Helen has not offered her skills to a wider audience but following retirement from her career in the pharmaceutical industry, she will be offering both original artwork and limited-edition prints for sale in the UK, and across the World.

Stephanie Drake

Stephanie Drake runs Bébé Bicyclette, an independent studio that designs and illustrates children’s products. She also provides freelance services to anyone looking to bring their ideas or publications to life through tailored design solutions and illustrative support.

Stephanie studied fine art at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art before working the best part of a decade as a professional illustrator, textile designer, and children’s book designer. Through this range of experience, she focussed her efforts and created something she is truly proud of – Bébé Bicyclette.

The catalyst for this has been the most arduous creation to date; her children. Eddy and Felix are the two little people who have, one way or another, shown Stephanie where her priorities lie. Now her work harmoniously coexists alongside raising her family and gives her a platform to create her best work to date.