Location: Art Gallery
When: 8 - 19 October 2025
Time: Wednesday to Saturday 10am - 4pm, Sunday 1pm - 4pm
About This Exhibition:
I have always had artistic leanings, but it was not until I retired at the age of 60 that I joined an oil painting class, and instantly fell in love with the medium.
Oil paint excites me… the texture, mixing, blending and layering colours, the way you can move it around, and use it as a wash or impasto. I particularly love to work on second hand canvases, working over previous brush marks, or incorporating elements from an underlying painting.
I have also discovered a passion for painting people…the challenge of portraiture, attaining a likeness or capturing something about a personality or a mood fascinates me. I like to start a painting from life because a living, breathing model, however professional, moves and talks, informing me how their face and body works with their personality.
I have been privileged to work with some amazingly talented models, (and artists!), in the past few years.
I am an eclectic artist, moved by the beauty of nature, a play of shadows, the placement of objects within spaces, and the spaces themselves. I am always taking photos, and I derive great joy from experimenting with different subjects and mediums, clay, stone carving, lino, watercolours, collage and chalk pastels, hopping and skipping from one subject matter and medium to another as the mood takes me, but it is painting with oils that has become my passion, and portraiture that I keep returning to.
It has been such fun to finally let my creative Genii out of the bottle, and I am excited to show some of my work in a gallery setting in this, my first exhibition.
Floral Tango, by Amanda Harris
About The Artist:
I am fascinated by people…what makes them tick, how they look, physiology and anatomy, psychology and emotion, ethnicity and divergence….. and I have always felt compelled to draw them.
I went to life drawing classes from an early age, studied Art and Biology to A level, then came to Brighton to train as an art teacher in the 70’s. I taught for a year, but then left the profession to start a family and pursue a different career. Life sort of got in the way of any artistic aspirations, but, when I retired at the age of 60, I joined an oil painting class and immediately fell in love with the medium.
It was here that I rediscovered my passion for painting people…the challenge of portraiture, attaining a likeness or capturing something about a personality or a mood fascinates me. I like to start a painting from life because a living, breathing model, however professional, moves and talks, informing me of how their face and body works with their personality.
I have been privileged to work with some amazingly talented models and artists in the past few years.
Oil paint excites me… the texture, mixing, blending and layering of colours, the way you can move it around, and use it as a wash or impasto. I love to work on second hand canvases, working over previous brush marks, or incorporating elements from an underlying painting. Working on a blank canvas can be daunting, but somehow, with an underlying surface, my work evolves and emerges in a different, and often freer way. I rarely plan a painting, relying more on immediate observation and instinct. I like to work fast, capturing something that I can then work into.
I am an eclectic artist, moved by the beauty of nature, a play of shadows, the placement of objects within spaces, and the spaces themselves. I am always taking photos, and I derive great joy from experimenting with different subjects and mediums, clay, stone carving, lino, watercolours, collage and chalk pastels, hopping and skipping from one subject matter and medium to another as the mood takes me, but it is painting with oils that has become my passion, and portraiture that I keep returning to.
It has been such fun to finally let my creative genie out of the bottle, and, in this, my first exhibition, to show a selection of my work in a gallery setting.
