W&N materials used
Artists’ Water Colour
About Shirley Trevena
Shirley Trevena was born in Brixton, London, and now lives in Brighton. She has had no formal art education.
Her paintings are exhibited each year at the Mall Galleries, London, the Brighton Art Fair and the Orange Street Gallery, Uppingham.
In 2010 she was invited to exhibit as a special guest at the 7th International Watercolour Festival in Antwerp, Belgium, which is sponsored by Winsor & Newton.
In 1994 she became a member of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours and was an elected member of the RI Council, (1995-1999) and was re-elected for the period 2001-2004. In her first year she won the prestigious Winsor & Newton Award and in her second year she was winner of the Llewellyn Prize.
In 2007 she won the John Blockley Prize. She has run successful workshops in Italy, France, Brighton, Yorkshire and at the Mall Galleries in London.
In 2004 she had a book published by Harper Collins called 'Taking Risks with Watercolour', which was shortlisted for the 'Artist Choice Book of the Year 2005'. Her second book on colour, 'Vibrant Watercolours', was published in October 2006 and was also shortlisted for the 'Artist Choice Book of the Year 2007'.
She has produced 2 DVDs, Taking Risks with Watercolour and Breaking the Rules of Watercolour. Limited editions of her work include lithographic prints published by Curwen Studios, London, and silkscreen prints published by CCA, Continental Art Holding for Japan and the Orange Street Gallery in Uppingham.
Shirley Trevena's Work
"My paintings are mainly of domestic settings using objects that I have collected over the years for their specific colour or shape. Frequently a painting begins with just the desire to see two fabulous colours nudging up against each other. There has to be a visual excitement towards my subject matter and I try to pass this involvement on to my viewer. My work appears to be painted very freely with loose brush strokes, but there is a strong discipline underpinning it all, giving attention to detailed balance and movement, always with a strong compositional structure.
I work quite slowly, building up the surfaces, concocting a muddled perspective, fractured and disjointed picture planes and describing objects, which begin at strange places and end nowhere at all. Implying things rather than explaining them. Above all I want the paintings to reveal themselves slowly, remaining interesting over time, to exist beyond that first hit of glorious colour."
For further information on Shirley Trevena visit:
http://www.shirleytrevena.com