Addy Gardner – portfolio

Contact the artist

https://www.addygardner.co.uk
07814 192515
addygardner.art@gmail.com

Artist information

Addy Gardner’s work explores her thoughts and feelings in relation to ‘wildness’. Her inspiration largely stems from the relationship she has with natural places and her ideas about nature, believing that returning natural spaces to wild is fundamental to the future of our world.  She is interested in what draws people to nature and recognises in herself a deep, almost primeval, need for rewilded landscapes. This is both a longing for both visually and mentally freer spaces.

Gardner completed an art foundation and was set to begin a BA in London. Through a desire to make sense of a difficult family event, she decided instead to do a degree in psychology. Her psychology background however has allowed her a deeper understanding of her position in relation to nature and the importance of nature and art in respect to  wellbeing and self actualisation. This is most evident in the titles of her work which directly relate to her own connections with the landscapes she paints and the importance of both nature and art to her life. She recently also studied Art and Ecology at Node in Berlin.

Gardner returned to painting full time when she became a mother in 2007. She believes that her two children gave her the  confidence and strength to go on and have many solo and group shows in London, Oxford, Edinburgh and Plymouth, both through galleries and self representing. She has completed two residencies, is a member of the Plymouth Society of Artists and has had work selected to appear in a newly decorated house on a well known home improvement program. She hopes to also to one day complete a masters.

Her work is held in private collections both in the UK and internationally. She lives and works in Oxfordshire and works from her studio at the bottom of her very wild garden.

Exhibition information

My practice is rooted in an ongoing exploration of how the language of paint can echo the shifting, dynamic character of the natural landscape. Each work begins with a painterly enquiry; whether a particular colour tension, the interplay of textured and smooth surfaces, or the contrast between complexity and simplicity. These formal investigations become a way of thinking about the structural rhythms of landscape itself: the threshold where sky meets land, the negotiation between foreground and distance, and the quiet but compelling lines that articulate a place.

Oil paint remains at the heart of my work for its luminosity and its capacity to hold depth, nuance, and atmosphere. The surface of a canvas functions almost as a portal, an invitation into another dimension where material, gesture, and perception converge. In recent years I have expanded my approach to include mixed media, incorporating collage, charcoal, and varied mediums. These additions allow me to extend the vocabulary of mark-making, drawing me closer to the sensory and emotional presence of the natural world. The process is, for me, both meditative and vital: a state of continual discovery fuelled by the push and pull of colour, surface, and form.

My influences range from the expressive intensity of Frank Auerbach whose commitment to capturing an ineffable essence has long resonated with me, to the deep attentiveness to nature found in Constable, the 19th-century Scottish painter Gibson, and the British Romantic tradition. Their devotion to the landscape parallels my own desire to honour the places that shape my experience.

While my work does not always arise from direct observation, I have recently returned more intentionally to the beauty of my immediate surroundings. These paintings aim to translate the quiet joy, wonder, and sense of adventure that landscapes inspire in me. Ultimately, I hope that viewers encounter in my work not only a depiction of nature, but an invitation to re-engage with its spirit, its luminosity, its complexity, and its enduring capacity to transport.