Artist information
Clova been teaching and exhibiting as a professional artist in Oxfordshire for several decades and participating in Artweeks since 2007. She trained at the Ruskin and the Royal Academy Schools in the eighties winning a number of prizes and scholarships. She has exhibited extensively in London and the South of England where she has found many collectors and attracted numerous commissions. She has had a long relationship with Eastwood Fine Art in Hampshire where she continues to exhibit.
"Painting in the moment, from life, is becoming increasingly rare - but for me it is an addiction. To note the nuances of light, form and colour and then to try to distill the three dimensional world onto a flat surface is challenging. However, the urgency of capturing a plum blossom as it opens, a fig before it rots or a particularly beautiful shadow induces a heightened engagement for which no photograph is ever a substitute."
Exhibition information
The Victorian interiors and garden studio where I show my work are an integral part of my inspiration and practice as an artist.
In the large and beautifully lit Music Room- (my family are musicians) there is a grand piano and instruments that appear in some of the paintings which fuse interior with still life. The decorative Rajasthani cupboards and vintage 60s curtains signal a fascination with pattern and design from many eras and cultures which is reflected in much of my work. Artefacts from and memories of time spent in France, Italy, Morocco and further afield have encouraged me to build large assemblages in my studio to paint from, indulging my love of colour and bold, complex compositions. The surfaces and textures of these arrangements are brought alive by a painterly handling, stylistically somewhere between Impressionist and Post Impressionist.
In addition to the large statement pieces in oil, gouache and mixed media on display there are smaller more intimate pictures including ink drawings from travels abroad and oil studies of the artist's garden from her faux Edwardian brick studio.
All the works have bespoke frames which are made and hand finished by two of Oxford's best framers.