I am a painter specialising in light-filled watercolours. I have grown to love the excitement of wet-in-wet watercolours and I now devote my artistic practice to this mobile medium. I create my portraits and landscapes using my ‘gravity painting’ techniques. Here is a video of a few recent works that exploit the shape-shifting qualities of watercolour. (Music by Robbie and Dominic Beale.)
My painting practice began back in 1996 in Singapore. A collection of architectural oil studies on paper sold at art fairs and my 1998 solo exhibition at the British High Commission. I created a series of prints for galleries, hotels and Changi Airport and commissions followed from the US Embassy, Reuters, the British High Commission and British Club to name a few.
In 2006 I returned to the UK and set-up a studio/gallery in Bath. My oil portrait ‘The butterfly house’ made the final of the Holburne Portrait Prize in the city in 2010 and went on to win The Artist Magazine Editor’s Choice Award at The Society of Women Artists’ 2013 Annual Exhibition.
My watercolour portrait ‘Robbie’ was selected to hang in the Mall Galleries with the Royal Watercolour Society in 2011 and in Bankside Gallery with the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours in 2012. By carefully controlling the way light falls on my portrait sitters, I create dramatic but intimate portrait commissions for families and individuals.
The subtle light of the atmospheric weather in the British landscape was also inspiring my artistic practice alongside my portraits. My painting experiments were led by my desire to capture the mysterious subjects of mist, rays of sunlight and glittering reflected light. My exhibition ‘Atmospherics’ explored this theme, coinciding with the local 2010 Cloth Road Art Trail.
I now jumped from using paper (that I had to stretch) to watercolour artboard. This rigid surface helps me to faithfully record the mingling of my cascading pigments within water as they react together naturally to create delicate veils of colour and colliding effects.
My ‘gravity painted’ landscapes sell at exhibition with the Bath Society of Artists in the Victoria Art Gallery and in my solo exhibitions at Packhorse Bath and 44AD Artspace, as well as further afield at First-View Gallery in Wiltshire. You can find my exhibition archive here.
I explain my techniques in my own intensive Bath Watercolour Workshops, at art centres, art societies and in art magazines. Here is a short introduction to my methods.
Links:
Society of Women Artists – Member
44AD – Associate
VisitBath – online events
Royal Crescent Hotel – providing their Paint Bath Package
Royal Society of Portrait Painters
Royal Watercolour Society
Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolour
First View Gallery, National Trust Stourhead – gallery stocking my prints and originals
Flamingo Gifts, Bath – gift shop and gallery stocking my prints
White Chalk Gallery, Devizes – gallery stocking my prints and originals
Widcombe Art Trail – regular participant
Combe Down Art Trail – committee member
Wylye Valley Art Trail – regular participant
Wilson and Fay – book illustrations