Jill Barthorpe

After graduating from the Slade School of Art in London Jill won a European scholarship to paint in South-West France. She returned to London to establish a studio, continuing to spend half the year in France with frequent trips to work in Italy and Spain. Now entirely based in England she lives and works in rural Lincolnshire, where the rolling countryside and huge skies provide constant stimulation for her work.

Over the past 30 years Jill has exhibited extensively in the UK and America. Her paintings have been selected for ‘Critics Choice’ exhibitions and sold through Christie’s contemporary art sales. Jill’s work also features in several important corporate and private collections.

“For me the excitement of painting is trying to capture the ‘likeness’ of things without slavish description. Paradoxically, I find the most interesting way to carve out this reality is to use objects of an ephemeral nature: trees, clouds, flowers; their constant movement and the passage of the light during the day forces me to make decisions about their essential character and to attempt to draw that, rather than rely on an impression based on the moment. Similarly my approach to colour is to distil the essence and define the point of change rather than model the surface.” – Jill Barthorpe 2011