Eleanor Somerset

I’ve seen Eleanor’s paintings materialise in her studio and she’s always applied a sureness of touch, intimate knowledge of painting techniques, and enormous talent.

I love the drama of each work, hinting at a lost summer, the start of spring, or an oncoming rain shower. The sense of light and space is wonderful, as is the suggestion of a mountain range in the distance, or the play of reflections on an inlet in the foreground.

Each work seems to trap a world within the frame, capturing an ongoing moment.

This is a great body of work and I hope for much success for Eleanor.

-Karl Maughan

To me, the sky is a place of magic. Whatever the weather, someone else in the world is experiencing that same sky, uniting and creating memories. My landscapes are full of sky, and full of connections. Although I sometimes depict a particular place, more often than not it is nowhere in particular. I think of it as an interpretation of different landscapes, a melding of my experiences. These are emotive inscapes rather than real scenes, inviting the viewer to parallel journeys of discovery.

Born in New Zealand, I grew up in Kenya which was home but wasn’t. Friends came and went, and holidays were safaris off the beaten track where my father would say ‘let’s see what’s around the corner, it’s going to be exciting’. It was a wonderful, different childhood, full of big skies and untamed landscapes.

I still want to see what’s around the corner, find new paths and prompt unexpected meetings. A storm can be calming and a place to reflect, and a hot summer’s day can hold a sense of excitement and energy. Restless by nature, my art is a constant exploration of self, seeking ever-renewed combinations of current impressions and past experience.

I work mainly in oils, a medium that feels to me well suited to an emotional response to colour and light. The weight of the brush-stroke gives life and density to the mix of colours that seem to emanate from an object suffused with natural light. As Henri Matisse said “The chief function of colour should be to serve expression. Colour helps to express light; not the physical phenomenon, but the only light that really exists – that in the artist’s brain.”