Betty Harrison

Based in Cheltenham, Betty graduated from the University of Gloucestershire with a BA (Hons) in Fine Art Painting & Drawing in 2007. Her evocative landscapes and seascapes, capture the elusive yet calming quality of misty valleys, leaden skies and low winter light on snow or sea. She says of her work “Alongside my more traditional landscape based work, influenced by artists of the great 19^th Century Romantic tradition such as Turner, Palmer and Friedrich, my recent paintings come from a more contemporary starting point.”

Though still largely landscape based, they emerge from more modern sources including cinema, television and in particular, digital photography. “The freedom provided by digital imagery means that I can capture what, at first glance, might seem banal, but on closer examination holds an elemental beauty.”

Qualities of light and atmosphere continue to be a source of inspiration, together with ideas of mans’ interaction with, and struggle against, nature. “I have found this in favourite films, chance encounters with TV documentaries or journeys through winter landscapes where fog, rain, frost and snow are all grist to the mill”.

PRIZES

Summerfield Bursary to study at the British School of Rome, 2006

Shortlisted for Broadway Arts Festival Open Competition, 2010

EXHIBITIONS

Affordable Art Fair Bristol, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016

Affordable Art Fair London, 2016, 2017

Royal West of England Academy Autumn Exhibition, 2008, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014