Artists Bio:
The calling to create art started very early for me, in fact, my earliest memories I remember creating, drawing, and crafting in all forms, and I even formed my own artist community ‘Ruth’s Art Club’ at primary school. Every birthday and Christmas had a long list of crafting supplies, and I was lucky enough that my father encouraged my passions. The first artwork I saw that viscerally moved me was Van Gogh, Cafe Terrace at night (1888).
The experience made me feel moved to a different place, a magical place outside real life. I felt the power art has to move you, shift emotions and transcend. I had quite a challenging childhood, and finding a new space that evokes a positive mood was a relief and a light turned on for me. At that point I knew I wanted to be an artist and that feeling has never left. I also realised in this moment that everything is temporary and emotions change depending on your surroundings.
My ambition is still to create a moving experience for the viewer, to take them to a place of wonder and delight, through uplifting colour palettes and natural forms.
Creating joy and uplifting people really motivates me to create artwork. I love natural beauty and the themes of botanics and living creatures are a common source of inspiration for me. The natural world’s variety of life, colours, shapes and forms is a never-ending source of wonder and curiosity. The experience of being within nature is both humbling and awe-inspiring.
Growing up in an unconventional family, with a single-parent father raising me and my brother, I experienced feeling left out of normal family life and society’s expectations. This life experience led me to always lean into empathy, and being comfortable with unconventional ideas and celebrate differences. For this reason, I love quirky things and combining contrasting visual references together.
I want to celebrate difference, and live a curious life, embracing idiosynchronicity. There’s nothing I like more than browsing charity shops, finding unique treasures, and wandering around a garden to find new species of plants.
Pattern and rhythm feature a lot in my work, as I find these naturally occurring patterns in nature a tonic to a sometimes complex and anxiety-provoking contemporary life. My bold and bright colours uplift and inspire, encouraging goodwill in people and giving people the courage to keep going. I believe more love is needed in the world to create a ripple effect of empathy and kindness. I’m passionate about looking after the environment to sustain our precious natural world. You can read more about how I put my environmental passion into action here.
I do have a formal art education, however, I studied Textile Design at Winchester School of Art, not in Fine Art (like you might understandably presume). I had some success as a freelance textile designer, but I realised a few years ago (during the pandemic) that painting is where my true passion lies and fits me best. The process of painting is very much a slowing down and considered way of creating in contrast to textile design which is dictated by trends and seasons.
Since going back to painting I have exhibited in New York, Venice and Milan, and appeared in Vanity Fair. Coming from a very humble background growing up in Walsall, a post-industrial town, the response to my artwork has taken me by storm, but I love hearing about the positive impact my painting has on people’s life experiences. I now live in Dunfermline in Scotland in a more rural setting. My ambitions are to create art accessible to everyone and I hope in the future I can bring art exhibitions to people who wouldn’t necessarily walk into a gallery, to show them the power of art, in an unconventional and welcoming setting.
My artistic values lead the direction of my work
- Create breath-taking beauty inspired by nature
- Use colour and pattern that uplifts, is playful and joyful
- I combine quirky ideas, mixing representational and abstract styles
- A slower more considered (but intuitive) process of painting suits my preferred way of creating
- I’m passionate about encouraging everyone to create. I like to build confidence in less experienced artists and break down elitist ideas about entering the world of art
- I get inspired by walking in nature and different cultures to find new colour-ways and motifs
- Mental health is a subject close to my heart. As a young person, I felt left out of ‘normal’ society having a single dad raise me. I now embrace weird, strange and different things, and help others do the same.
Links:
