Follies at Painswick Rococo Garden
By Angie Spencer
Original artworks
Oil on canvas
Framed
Image size: H: 60cm x W: 50cm
Framed size: H: 64cm x W: 54cm
£595 each
Again and again, Angie is to be found outside, in all weathers, painting the water and woodlands near her Stroud home. For the last year, she has been 'Artist in Residence' at Painswick Rococo Garden, creating these wonderful records of the unique features of this very individual British pleasure garden. Across the seasons, she chose views from quiet corners, with a particular fondness for its water features, her favourite subject.
The result is an unmissable, once-only collection of works, perfect for anyone who loves - or lives in - this part of the country or is a devotee of the Rococo style.
If you've visited the Rococo Garden in the last year you may have come across her at work, with her old-style travel easel and oil paints:
“Painting in the Rococo Garden has been a delight. Staff and volunteers have been so welcoming and the Garden itself is a painter’s paradise, full of serene beauty,” says Angie. “My residency has also presented a few challenges – mainly that of painting in public. I got used to engaging with visitors at every stage of a painting’s development, from the first brush strokes. Being met with such resoundingly positive responses has been wonderful.”
Exedra From the Plunge Pool and First Snowdrops at the Red House are two of the larger paintings emerging from her residency and depict the two most iconic of the buildings at this hidden valley horticultural wonder.
ABOUT ANGIE SPENCER
Angie was born in Scarborough, North Yorkshire in 1959 and now lives in Stroud where she has her studio.
Her paintings explore the beauty of the landscape. She has a particular love of - and expertise in - painting the moving waters of rivers and lakes where she swims regularly throughout the year.
She works mostly in oils ‘en plein air’ and draws inspiration from the Romantic movement and their approach to the landscape. If work is developed in the studio it always begins with plein air drawings rather than with photographs.
“I find that there is no substitute for direct observation. I paint best when I'm immersed in the landscape. There are colours and subtleties in nature that are difficult to imagine in the studio. The direct effects of light and atmosphere can only ever be hinted at in a painting but there is a greater chance of capturing it if one is observing carefully from life.”
Angie graduated with a BA in Fine Art at the University of Gloucestershire in 2004. She is also a classical violinist and, currently, is leader of the Stroud Symphony Orchestra, as well as playing in the Capriol Chamber Orchestra and in a string quartet.