Patricia Forrest
Patricia Forrest is a contemporary abstract painter based in West Mersea, Essex. She graduated with a BA in Fine Art from Central St Martins and studied Photography and Multimedia at the University of Westminster. Her recent paintings are inspired by seascapes along the Essex, Suffolk and Cornish coasts, capturing the changing impact of light and weather across the landscape.
She has exhibited in London at Tobacco Dock and Lauderdale House; in Colchester with Colchester Art Society, at The Minories and at Firstsite; and across the region at the Essex Summer of Art in Harwich, Mersea Gallery, The Barn and the Oyster Gallery on Mersea Island, The Ballroom Arts gallery in Aldeburgh (Art for Cure - FEAST), The Sentinel Gallery in Wivenhoe, the Pond Gallery at Snape Maltings and the Essex Open at Beecroft Art Gallery, as well as at the Tarpey Gallery, Castle Donington. She is currently represented by The Gallery, Maldon, and is an experienced art educator who taught and managed Creative Industries programmes in Further Education for over twenty years.
Artist Statement
I started as a painter, working mainly with pigments on a large scale to explore 'structures' physically and metaphorically. I continued to explore this theme through photography, gradually merging and blurring the two mediums. I find the challenge of combining the immediacy of photography with the evolutionary process of painting inspiring and stimulating.
Through mixed media, I explore digitally manipulated imagery as an iterative process of constructing and deconstructing images. I combine a variety of media such as oil paints, photography and digital work and produce originals as well as limited edition prints.
As well as mixed media, I work with oils and pigments. My recent paintings are inspired by seascapes throughout the Essex, Suffolk and Cornish Coasts. I have endeavoured to capture the changing impact of light and weather conditions across the landscape. My interpretations are abstract constructions based on combinations of visual and imaginary scenes.