Sunday 9 March 2008

Light and colour - the paintings of Rachel Sharp


Chatting to Rachel Sharp this week, I realised that it’s more than six months since I last mentioned her work on this blog, which is really quite unforgivable, so I’m remedying this state of affairs right here, right now.


Rachel is currently one of the 30 artists featured in the Scottish Illustrators Show at the Frames Gallery in Perth (along with the brilliant Iain McIntosh – illustrator of Alexander McCall Smith’s Scotland Street series, amongst others. So if you fancy a print of Love Over Scotland – that’s the place to go!)


I've been mad about Rachel's work ever since the day I first came across her watercolours of flowers and fruit on the internet five years ago and quickly found myself acquiring several walls'-worth of her work. Her response to light and colour and her often quirky and unconventional takes on fruit and flowers in particular struck me immediately and continue to delight and inspire.


Once I got to know Rachel (who is now, happily, a real-life friend), it was, I suppose, not terrifically surprising to discover that she counts some of my own favourite artists amongst her greatest influences: Matisse , Vuillard, Dufy and Rothko to name but four.

Here are a selection of Rachel’s recent paintings, some of which are currently in the Frames show in Perth. You can see more of her original works on her attractive website , and I’m very happy to have been involved in publishing a series of limited edition giclee prints of her paintings, which you can see and buy here . Each one is individually numbered and signed by the artist.

And below are a few of Rachel's paintings from my own greedy hoard.


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

' ... favourite artists ...Matisse, Vuillard, Dufy and Rothko ...' Snap. I can quite see why you are so taken with Rachel Sharp's work.

Do you ever run out of wall space? With books, you can always put up more shelves but you can't just knock up a few extra walls overnight. I am now in the sorry position of having more pictures than walls upon which to display them. Not quite on the Vatican Museums scale of things but give me time. Perhaps I should just shuffle them around occasionally.