Erica Fairhurst

Born and raised surrounded by the hills of Dorset, Erica discovered her love of painting at secondary school, painting 7ft self portraits in oil, inspired by the expressionist and impressionist painters of the last two centuries. After a period of absence, she returned to live in Chetnole, Dorset, so draws from her childhood memories of the countryside and the coast, to create landscapes and seascapes and still lives of nature. Her bright canvases painted mainly with acrylic, applied with palette knives, sing with energy and observation of light and tone. Her paintings are gradually moving toward abstraction but remain recognisable. She spends many sunny days sketching and painting out of the back of her car, or sitting in a field. Armed with sketches, photographs and memory, she pieces landscapes together in her studio. She finds it interesting that we hold emotional connections to particular places and landscapes: She returns to the same themes and places diving deeper into what they can evoke. Her deep desire to create is coupled with a motivation to provoke those feelings for the viewer.