Art to gladden the heart | Broughton Spurtle

Submitted by Editor on Sat, 01/05/2010 - 20:15

Two new exhibitions in Broughton will feature floral and botanical themes later this month.

The first, at the Union Gallery on Broughton Street, runs from 8–31 May and is a solo exhibition by Jenny Matthews.

'Jenny has taken the art of flower painting to the highest levels,' writes Union's Alison Auldjo. 'Her paintings are highly observed, and are often inspired by colour combinations noticed in the field.'

Whilst at Edinburgh College of Art, Matthews trained under Dame Elizabeth Blackadder and later received the Edinburgh College of Art Prize for Watercolour in 1986. Since then she has won several other awards, including the Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer Purchase Prize in 2007.

'I wanted to put this exhibition on as a celebration,' concludes Auldjo. 'It's been a particularly awful winter, and – to coincide with an improvement in the weather – the idea of the exhibition is to give everyone a lift, to be inspired. Surely we all love flowers?'

The second exhibition is at Art Amatoria on Bellevue Crescent, from 13–27 May, and comprises works by Ann Fraser, Anna Knight, Gael Sellwood, Dugald Graham-Campbell, and Fiona Stickland.

'Botanical painting has had a resurgence in recent years and continues to grow in popularity,' says Amatoria's Caroline Hay. 'The genre demands immense skill from the artist in order to capture the delicacy and complexity of the chosen subject, be it a flower in bloom or fruit just fallen from a tree.'

Ann Fraser is one of the UK's most respected painters of botanical art and has exhibited widely since her first solo show in London in 1991. Every plant painted by her has been grown in her garden at Inveresk.

With her unusual use of close-up and composition, Anna Knights takes a modern and contemporary approach to botanical painting. She is entirely self-taught and began botanical painting in her spare time in February 2006. Exhibiting for the first time in June 2007, she was awarded an RHS Gold Medal and Best Botanical Artist In Show for her series of paintings of the apple tree 'James Grieve'.

For further information, visit www.uniongallery.co.uk or www.artamatoria.co.uk.