As well as exhibitions from Gillian Robertson, Maggie Hilditch and Textiles in the Park, Castle Park Arts Centre is also displaying work from Liverpool-based artist collective Hub Studios.

Hub Studios is a group of 12 independent creatives who share a space within Cains Brewery Village in Liverpool's Baltic Triangle area.

Although they all have their own individual style, working in the same studio allows the artists to draw inspiration from each other, both consciously and subconsciously.

"It is great to share a space with likeminded people, where you can be truly yourself," says Maria 'Miza' Tavares, a visual artist and art teacher whose work centres on the endangered riches of our natural environment.

"Anything and everything about nature inspires me," she adds. "I can spend weeks on my own just staring at a landscape, taking 10,000 photos to get one painting done.

"I am particularly drawn to trees; they are not only essential for life but, as the longest living species on earth, they give us a link between the past, present and future.

"I paint a lot of trees from all different angles. I feel a great connection with Mother Earth, and some of my greatest pleasures are walking barefoot, listening to the wind, and feeling the sun's rays on my skin.

"Maybe I just miss my country, Portugal!"

Miza's fascination with the timelessness of tree life is evident in her work, 'Amazon Forest', which belongs to her latest exhibition, Elements – Air, Earth, Fire, Water, an exploration of the effects of climate change on our landscapes.

"It's about what is happening in the world right now," Miza says, "and what will eventually affect us in the future."

Moving from the deep green rainforest to the baked red earth of an arid desert, Elements then explores the biting blue of thawing Arctic ice sheets in a piece called 'Reflections'.

In this work, a lone polar bear perches on the edge of its vanishing home, surrounded by the slow drip of ice into the sea.

"I started this piece after watching one of David Attenborough's programs," Miza explains. "It is about the effects of climate change on the fragile ecosystem of our home.

"Our climate is changing, we are removing natural habitats, animals are becoming extinct, storms and disasters are becoming a common occurrence.

"These aren't natural disasters, however, they've been created by us.

"I think it is an artist's duty to reflect the times we live in and what is happening in the world right now. So, I paint what I see."

Miza's evocative pieces are joined by quirky city scenes from Freida McKitrick, whose wonderfully characterful observations breathe new life into the familiar architecture of Chester, Frodsham and Liverpool.

The bustle of urban activity is also explored in Clare Flinn's works, in which buildings and streets are imbued with the type of honeyed light that speaks of sunshine and summer afternoons.

Meanwhile, Marianna Whitehorn offers a twist on the conventional cityscape as she adds lustre to the Liverpool skyline, bathing its once grey shapes with bright greens and blues.

These rich Mediterranean colours are carried over into her abstract floral images and nude portraits, which exude warmth and personality.

Dynamic human forms are also at the centre of Peter Cameron's paint and pastel pieces, which capture people absorbed in different forms of movement.

While one of his figures relishes the firm pluck of a double bass string, another struts through a dog walk in sharp stiletto heels.

In contrast, human life seems banished from Steve Bayley's dreamy landscapes, in which paint is freed from the flatness of its canvas, building itself up into tactile grasses, leaves and waves.

Steve's soft, fluid lines are echoed faintly in Janice Harris's expressive abstracts, where vaguely familiar shapes seem to melt into ever-shifting layers of colour and movement.

The final artist contributing to the Hub Studios exhibition is former group member and special guest, Kim Harley, whose beautiful paintings of humans and animals seem touchable in their meticulous attention to texture and surface.

Looking at them, you can almost feel the fluff of fox fur, the smooth sheen of a horse's flank.

This diverse array of styles and subjects makes Hub Studios' exhibition an engaging exploration of the great versatility of paint and ink, and well worth a look!

A new normal for art exhibitions?

With the coronavirus pandemic making planning and collaboration difficult, the members of Hub Studios had to approach their Castle Park exhibition, which was organised by Steve Bayley, in a new way.

"As we have heard and all know by now, we are living unprecedented times," Miza says. "This exhibition was pencilled in before lockdown, but the global pandemic has permanently changed the way events happen, and as everybody else, we had to adapt to a new way of communicating and showing our work.

"Luckily, the studio in Liverpool is a very large space and we can all be there at the same time and be far apart from each other."

The Hub Studios group were then able to come and hang their work in the Arts Centre, allowing the public to view it virtually through Castle Park's Facebook page.

"This is my first time visiting Frodsham and I was wowed, it is a very pretty village indeed!" Miza says.

"Will virtual events be the new normal? Hopefully not; we hope visitors will be able to see the artwork face-to-face.

"On the other hand, virtual exhibitions can reach visitors from all corners of the world, so maybe a combination of both is the future."

If you would like to find out more about any of the works on display, please email your request to both [email protected] and [email protected], or phone 01928 735832 to leave a message.

To see more of the exhibition, click through the gallery at the top of this article.

To find out more about the artists involved, you can visit the Hub Studios or Castle Park websites.

You can view Miza's [I]Elements exhibition here[.I]