Month: February 2025

Ann has lived in Rochester for nearly 40 years and has been painting for 20 years. She developed her reputation as a plein air painter who now works primarily from her Garden Studio.
Ann paints the land, sea and sky in oils on both large and small canvases. Her latest paintings are exciting and looser, focussing on the state of the tide and weathers at various times of day and year, inspired by painting on the beach, sketches, photos and just being there. When Ann is in the studio her memories play an important part in working up a painting; the palette knife takes over, carefully placing the colours juxtaposed with each other resulting in a more abstract form of the subject. Ann uses line, brush and palette knife often producing highly textural work. She is best known for her seascapes, but is now gaining recognition for her modern landscapes.
Ann has been painting on the Kent Coast for some years, standing on the pebbly beach watching the tide ebb and flow, the morning mist across the Swale, the light on the horizon, the clouds coming in from the west over London, and the light out to sea to the north and east. The low tide exposes sandbanks, pebbles, seafood for the gulls to seek. Her work is inspired by her experience standing in the seashore and the fields immersing herself in the environment, getting to know the landscape, the colours. Sketching and plein air painting are an essential part of her process.
Each year Ann visits St Ives, a seaside town her parents took her to in the 1950s and 60s when it was a thriving Artists Community which included among others Barbara Hepworth, Ben Nicholson, Peter Lanyon and Wilhelmina Barns Graham. These artists have left their legacy today and the St Ives Painting School and Penwith Art Society are at the heart of what leads Ann to keep returning and to strive for a more abstract approach to painting. The surrounding countryside and the north Cornwall landscape are central to Ann’s inspiration