AN annual art extravaganza boasting a record number of exhibits opened on Saturday and continues until Easter Sunday.

Enterprising Grayswood couple Evelyn and Gwn Phillips launched AppArt more than 20 years ago as a showcase for contemporary creative talent and it has grown bigger and better every year.

Hosted by Prior’s Field School in Godalming, since 2014, this year’s show features 580 artworks in the light and airy hall and more than 800 exhibits on the Surrey Sculpture Society trail winding around the Gertrude Jekyll designed gardens.

Leading UK watercolourist Alexander Cresswell opened the show and is represented by a dramatic view of the commanding ruined tower of Dunstanburgh Castle.

Master draughtsman Farnham artist Victor Ambrus displays his dynamic use of line in Gaucho, a whirl of movement from the prancing steed to the rider caught mid-lassooing.

Also full of momentum, is Frances Knight’s breezy panorama in oils, May Morning Arun Valley, capturing shafts of sunlight across the rolling countryside, and Jamel Akib’s high-octane impressionistic oil of a dancer in full swing.

Equally eye-catching but more meditative, is Clare Bowen’s Harbour Sunrise, with masts of moored boats silhouetted against the glowing pink clouds.

Animal antics have inspired a host of endearing artworks, notably Naomi Beaver’s quirky Up with the Lark Singing, with a small flock of textile birds perched on a trumpet; Alan Wallace’s golden-eared stoneware hares and Penny Fleet’s vibrant mixed media bird studies.

Rosa Semple returns with her Chagall-like celebrations of romance, including her mixed media Piccolo Ponte of a radiant couple floating up and away from the dark streets.

New to the show is Liz Hauck, whose mixed media River Runs Deep-Eric Clapton, is a rippling landscape inspired by the emotion of a song.

Outside, visitors are treated to a huge range of exhibits along the trail mounted in association with the Surrey Sculpture Society.

Christine Charlesworth has created a tour de force in her lively take on hide and seek, comprising three individual bronze resin sculptures - Lola, Tom and Ollie - playing around a mighty garden tree.

Mark Reed’s patinated stainless steel Blossom reflects the shifting light in a globe of tightly packed florets.

Angie Doy’s windswept dog in aviator goggles sculpted in iron resin on a granite plinth is a delight, as is Gilbert Whyman’s knock-kneed Camel in a wild assortment of rusted welded steel cans and equally idiosyncratic towering Samurai.

Prior’s Field headteacher Tracy Kirnig said: “It is an absolute joy to share our wonderful site and gardens with the wide audience which AppArt draws and which grows each successive year.”

? AppArt 2019 at Prior’s Field School, Priorsfield Road, Godalming is open daily from 10am to 4pm until Easter Sunday, April 21. Entry is free.

By Beatrice Phillpotts