Hilary Dunne

Hilary Dunne lives near to the beautiful old town of Stamford in England after spending many years living in London's Notting Hill . She was born in Northamptonshire and grew up in Essex. She has travelled extensively in India, Latin America, Africa and the Caribbean and has family connections in Ethiopia.

She is a figurative artist, and by her own admission, not a very modern one! She is passionate about colour and influenced by the boldness, sensitivity and colour of the 15th century artists such as Fra Angelico and Filippo Lippi; the extravagance and exoticism of the 19th century artist, Gustav Klimt; the cultures and passions of Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America; and the mysticism of the icon of the Christian church.

She has had a passion for plants from early childhood and flowers appear symbolically in many of her paintings.

She generally prefers to work on board as this harks back to the beginnings of modern art which she feels an affinity with. She uses a structure medium over the board in order to create depth and texture and then oils - for their richness of consistency - and gold and other leafs - and anything else - from wallpaper and paper doillies to gels and fragments - that come to hand.

Some...

Hilary is largely self taught as an artist. She has a law degree from Nottingham university and worked as a commercial property lawyer in the city of London.

The struggle to balance the art and the law eventually became too much though and the art inevitably won after she was accepted for the first time at the Summer Exhibition in the Royal Academy of Arts in London. When wondering which to choose to pursue Hilary remembers someone saying to her "there is no choice: you can give up the law but you can never give up the art: it is part and parcel of you and who you are"

She did however take a number of part time courses - at Central Saint Martins, Heatherleys and the Hampstead Schools of Art - to learn some of the essentials - and also studied mosaic at the Hampstead School of Art and in Ravenna

2017 November - ING Discerning Eye Exhibition - Mall Galleries, London SW1

2017 June/July - Open Studios in her Cambridgeshire home

2016 November - Deepridge Chester Art Fair at Chester Race Course

2015 - Group show at Art Exposure Gallery, Glasgow

2014 - ING Discerning Eye Exhibition - Mall Galleries, London SW1 - Won FENTON MEYNELL PRIZE

2014 - Society of Equestrian Artists - Mall Galleries, London SW1

2012 - 2013 - work curtailed due to illness

2011 - ING Discerning Eye Exhibition - Mall Galleries, London SW1

2010 - ING Discerning Eye Exhibition - Mall Galleries, London SW1

2009 - "Small Works 2009" - Richeson Art Gallery, Kimberly, Wisconsin

2009 - "Out of Africa" - Obsidian Gallery, Stoke Mandeville, Buckinghamshire

2008 - "The Painted Face" - Orleans House Gallery, Richmond, Surrey

2008 - Society of Women Artists - Mall Galleries, London SW1

2008 - Summer Exhibition - Royal Academy of Arts, London W1

2008 - Society of Women Artists - Mall Galleries,
London SW1

2008 - Group Exhibition Kiku Gallery - Osaka, Japan

2007 - Society of Women Artists - Mall Galleries, London SW1

2007 - "Mental Image" - Irongate Studios, Albion Street, Glasgow

2007 - ING Discerning Eye Exhibition ...