The Opticians, Penge Painting

www.michelleheron.co.uk. The John Ruskin Prize finalist 2016 and 2019. "My work has always been interested in the spaces that are unused or forgotten and the traces where people have been. To me they invoke an air of mystery or foreboding. Be it the changing use of buildings, faded shop signs, graffiti on overlooked street furniture or places on the verge of being lost. They are all things that I want to be recorded before being cleaned away. They are recordings of the streets as they used to be but also of today. The paintings depict rich histories of a bygone era but also a sense of a sinister, eery and dystopian landscape. Ubiquitous shops once owned by generations of the same family now hang on the verge of being replaced with a less personal service, devoid of interaction and community. The shadows and light falling on the buildings give them a new perspective yet they remind you of the melancholy of the sun setting. Their titles give away their topological identities to make them more personal and remembered. I want to give them meaning and a purpose, to be cared about." Michelle Heron is a figurative painter (from Norfolk, UK). Following a degree in Fine Art at the University of Hertfordshire she spent the next 16 years in London. Her paintings have been exhibited at The Mall Galleries, London, The New Art Gallery, Walsall, Hampton Court Palace, London and The Royal Academy, London. In 2016 Michelle’s work was shortlisted for The Lynn Painter-Stainers Prize, The John Ruskin Prize and The National Open Art Competition and in 2017 was selected for The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. IN 2018 she was selected to exhibit at the 157th Society of Women Artists Annual Open Submission Exhibition.