Gabriella Buckingham

I'm fascinated by colour, light, and paint itself. In the last few years, I've enjoyed using my intuition to paint, as much as observing the subtle changes of shape and colour as light shifts over a subject and I particularly like combining these approaches. There's always a spiritual element in my landscape work and that feeling of not knowing what will appear, the mystery of intuitive painting is fascinating to me. With my still-life paintings, this can also be the case and often these works can become explorations of relationships, occasionally with subtle humour. Sometimes my paintings are bold and intuitive; at others, quiet and observed, very much like I am as a person. I’m uncovering what I find exciting to create. That could be portraying the way light falls around a small still life in a variety of ways; or the feeling of a wild freedom with the adventure of painting a landscape from imagination and memory. There is an energy of attempting to make the invisible visible in my work and being connected to something beyond me.

My practice is a quest for the feeling of freedom and joy that painting at its best, can give you and consequently the audience for the work. I love the elusive way the best paintings seem to make a surprise appearance."

My work features in the Royal Academy 2025 calendar and has been shown twice at their Summer Exhibition. Some of my paintings have been shortlisted for The ING Direct prize, Figurative Art now, The Sir John Hurt Art Prize and the Jackson's Art Prize.