Deep Down Painting

Nina Roberts was born in the county of Worcestershire. She grew up in West Africa, returning with her parents to England at the age of ten. She graduated from art college in the seventies, after studying illustration and design. Nina worked for London publishers, and then freelanced for The Garden studio, Covent Garden. In the late eighties Nina and her husband decided to move to Wiltshire, in the South West, where her husband began the long process of opening a stone quarry. The struggle for both was enormous, taking Nina away from her work to help with the business. After the gap, Nina decided to change direction and become a painter and print maker. Self taught, she visited the galleries and museums, marvelling at painters like Francis Bacon and the sculptor Rachel Whiteread. Through the image of the bed, Nina links birth and death. Her feelings of being trapped are conveyed in box shapes. She interprets the image of stone blocks, shafts and the underground in an abstract way, that screams out at you in her cold use of colour. Today Nina finds herself once again changing direction to work with recycled glass building 3D constructions, which to her surprise compliments her paintings and silk screen prints.