Library Painting

Thank you for visiting my page! Any questions please ask :) I have been painting since childhood and have been focussed solely on art since school. For the past ten years now I have been painting imagined portraits and landscapes from my own photos, predominately. The portraits are my main focus currently, in various mediums and surfaces, I like to experiment and try lots of different ideas and explore where it can go. I like to create a beauty, some mystery or surrealism, feeling of a story or narrative. Sometimes inspired by fashion, or life events, sometimes stream-of-consciousness. The landscapes are mainly inspired by my own photos taken on the Isle of Wight or New Forest. I love striking light and dark, bold compositions and again a feeling of mystery or story. Woodlands, beach side trees and country roads are recurring themes, the focus being on the trees. I guess it’s an almost human element, a character or idea in the landscape. I work in any medium from drawings to paintings, in watercolour, ink, oil or acrylic, in an illustrative style to an expressive gestural painterly style. I have many of the usual influences, Basquiat, Picasso, Van Gogh, Egon Sheile, Daniel Clowes, comic books, graphic novels.. etc etc .. Bio: I was born in Southampton, England in 1982 and grew up on a houseboat until I was five years old, then my family sailed to the Caribbean where we lived and cruised for three years. We returned to England when I was nine and settled on the Isle of Wight, where I still live now, with my husband and two young children. I studied Fine Art at Portsmouth University, then Plymouth College of Art and Design. As I was only there a year I feel for the most part I am self-taught, with many influencers and teachers along the way. I have exhibited regularly on the Isle of Wight since 2001, at various galleries and events. I was successfully chosen to exhibit in London with Etsy UK as part of their ‘OPEN’ Exhibition in 2012. I was chosen as one of 3 artists to be part of Berghaus’ advertising campaign ‘Time To Get Out’ in 2018, using my landscape painting commissioned for them by VCCP. This was used across all media platforms and launched at the London Design Biennial at Somerset House, London. My work is in many private collections worldwide as I have been selling my work online since 2012.