Mary
Liddell has been painting and etching since 1980. She studied at the Central
School of Art in London, where the visionary painter Cecil Collins became
a powerful influence on her work.
She works chiefly in oil and watercolour, though has recently discovered the qualities of pastels, particularly in her portraits of children. She is very interested in exploring the effects of light and colour on familiar objects and loves painting still lives of fruit and flowers and her favourites china and vases, setting them up in her studio in a village outside Bath. She has an etching press where she produces her own prints, several of which have won prizes, these are often of the Somerset landscape, and many feature cockerels, rams and bulls which graze in the fields nearby.
Mary enjoys painting portraits and has a special gift for capturing children on paper, having spent the past eleven years drawing and painting her own three children
She also runs art courses specially designed for inspiring children aged from six to twelve. These take place in her studio, though she likes to take classes in her sunken garden, encouraging the children to take their inspiration from the beautiful trees and pools.
Mary
has exhibited in many galleries, over the years. Her next solo exhibition
is at the Summerleaze Gallery, East Knoyle, Dorset in April 2006.
There is no art without a poetic aim.
There is a species of emotion particular to painting.
There is an effect that results from a certain arrangement of colours, of lights, of shadows.
It is this that one calls the music of painting.”
EDOUARD VUILLARD