Claire Wiltsher is a landscape painter who lives and works in Lyndhurst. Her paintings beautifully capture the ever changing light and colours of the landscape. Claire has a very distinctive semi-abstract style which provides plenty of anchors for the viewer to understand the scene in front of them, but her use of multiple layers of paint and sometimes collage is often abstract in its application providing opportunities for heavily textured areas and for colours to be brought together through scratching, scraping and throwing paint at the canvass. Often her paintings evoke a moment when light is captured transforming a scene into something more sublime. In reality these moments are so fleeting, but Claire manages to capture them on canvass for us to enjoy again and again. It is not surprising therefore that she names Turner as one of her main influences and her frequent use of yellows, oranges and ochre seem also to be a nod to the great romantic painter. Anyone who lives in the New Forest and South Coast would also recognise her magical mix of yellows as being the perfect evocation of the yellow tinted haze that is so distinctive to these parts.
We are lucky enough to exhibit Claire’s work on a regular basis at Coastal Gallery and this week have received several new pieces. Please feel free to come in and enjoy seeing Claire’s work first hand.
Spring Wetlands II
90cm x 90cm
Claire Wiltsher: “The painting “Spring wetlands” is part of a small group of paintings inspired from Pennington marshes out walking a number of weeks ago. Silver greys and burnt umber merge with Ochre in a spatial hazy vision”.
Remains in Skye
50cm x 50cm
Claire Wiltsher: “‘Remains in Skye’ reflects the view from my window in Skye last month. A heavily textured painting showing the many layers of landscape. From the sky to the mountains from the river to the marshes. I used a combination of Acrylic as a base with fragments of collage and built up layers of oil paint over the top. Areas have been scrapped away to reveal textures beneath”.
Claire Wiltsher has gained a wealth of exhibiting experience alongside her 20 years teaching and co-ordinating various art programmes. She holds a Master’s in Fine Art from Northumbria University, her work has been nationally exhibited and she has been a finalist in many competitions. In 2010 Claire received the ‘Rosemary and Co’ Society of Women Artists annual award and was selected for the 2010 Royal Society of Marine Artists exhibition at the Mall Galleries.
