"Floating" Painting

Arabella Yapp is a Contemporary artist from South East London, she studied fine art at Goldsmiths and Middlesex Universities. Alongside painting Arabella worked as a teacher for many years specialising as an inclusion manager in London schools.
Arabella is fascinated with the connection between the abstract qualities of shimmering light and iridescence and capturing how light falls on different surfaces. One of her earliest memories is feeling ecstatic when given metallic powder paint at Nursery school and using it to paint Princesses.
She paints using acrylics sometimes incorporating metallic paints and coloured metallic leaf. She employs vibrant jewel- like colours, focussing on creating impact and bright light by juxtaposing saturated contrasting colours, to make them “sing” and vibrate against each other.
Arabella has a keen interest in portraiture and focuses on painting people and places she loves and experiences that bring her joy, using painting like a visual gratitude diary. She lives and works in a diverse, inner city setting and this inclusive life experience is a reflected in her autobiographical work. She investigates the choreography of relationships and the social harmony amongst people from diverse backgrounds in the world in which she lives and works.
Her most frequent subjects are her children, family and close friends. Swimming and water are frequent themes in her work symbolising family fun and happiness. As an obsessionally ardent swimmer she shares this love of water with her parents, siblings and her own children who feature swimming and diving in many of her paintings. Arabella loves to capture the human body in movement such as dancing or diving.
In 2025 she had her first solo exhibition at the Brixton Tate Gallery. This was a career high point for her and the success of this show has boosted her confidence as an artist