Information About the Artist




British landscape artist, Rebecca Barnard was born in 1961 near Saffron Walden in Essex. From 1982, after a foundation course, she took the opportunity to go abroad for what was intended to be a gap year, but which turned out to be a five year trip, living and working in both Europe and Australia.
On her return, she studied for a short period at the Heatherley School of Fine Art, but she considers herself, primarily, to be a self taught artist. She has, for many years, been exhibiting widely and her work is now collected throughout the UK.
Rebecca travels extensively around the country gathering images for painting, t
he West Country and her native East Anglia featuring highly. The process of creating a painting has always been important to Rebecca and with each progression, the work has naturally evolved through a series of media. Recently, encaustic used cold as a paste has become prevalent in her work. She prefers a rustic approach, enabling her to build texture, sometimes scoring and filling in places, creating a rich, luminous and, in the artist's words 'chewy' image which feasts the eye, capturing the intrinsic character and beauty of the English countryside and its changing seasons. The different moods of the day, all bathed in their own particular light, draw the viewer irresistibly into the painting.Says the artist; "My art has always been rooted in nature. The innate familiarity to me of the landscapes in which I was brought up, remain the one thing from which all else springs. I love the early mornings, when the light casts the longest shadows and when the peace helps me reflect on what is important for me. I want my work to give back to the viewer, some of that tranquillity and quiet reflection."
Work is featured regularly at Thompson's, Broadway Modern and Cambridge Contemporary Art, where she will be having another solo exhibition in May, 2010.