My love of flowers began on Scottish Highland holidays as a child. Since then it has been a passion to seek out flowers and plants wherever I go, be they cultivated or wild. Three years under the tutelage of Dame Elizabeth Blackadder refined my love of plants and flowers during my four year degree course in Drawing and Painting at Edinburgh College of Art.

Colour is central to my paintings, and I endeavour to recreate my wonder at the Creation around us through my work. I enjoy combining the skills of watercolour painting with impressionistic areas of colour in other water based media, most often on paper though also on canvas. I am interested in the character and personality of my subjects rather than their accurate and literal portrayal, not to mention their situation in terms of weather and landscape. To this end I like to harmonise colour and form, and to play with composition. Four years in Indonesia influenced my subjects including still lives involving my collection of Indonesian fabrics and an interest in tropical flora. Butterflies and insects have found their way into some of my pieces of late, and this is a subject I shall be following up in the future.

2011 Visual Arts Scotland, RSA, Edinburgh (1 painting): January
Royal Watercolour Society Annual Open Competition, London (2 paintings): March
John Davies Gallery, Gloucestershire: June/July
Frames Gallery, Perth, group exhibition: June
Uniongallery, Edinburgh: ‘Plight of the Bumblebee’ group exhibition, September
Frames Gallery, Edinburgh Art Fair, November
Thompson’s Aldeburgh, Christmas show, November/December
2010 UNIONgallery, Edinburgh, May - solo exhibition
Frames Gallery, Perth, October - solo exhibition
Thompson’s Aldeburgh, 2 person show: August
SOC, Aberlady, East Lothian, group wildlife exhibition: September, October
Charity Auction, (Sick Kids Hospital, Edinburgh), Lyon and Turnbull,
painting donated to value of £1000
2009 Strachan Fine Art, Knightsbridge, London - solo exhibition
Royal Watercolour Society 21st Century Watercolour Competition, London
Affordable Art Fair, London (Strachan Fine Art)
Chelsea Flower Show (Thompson’s Gallery, 25 paintings)
Bristol Art Fair (Frames Gallery)
SOC Aberlady, East Lothian, group wildlife exhibition
Thompson’s Aldeburgh, group summer show
The Artist Magazine, article about Jenny’s working techniques, August issue

www.jennymatthews.co.uk