Arabella Ross Hampshire, United Kingdom

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Arabella Ross: A British painter & Ceramicist. Exhibited in London, the UK and India. Her work is in private collections in London, Europe, North America & Australia. Born, 1959 she was brought up with the teachings of the Indian Philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti (1896-1986.) Ross completed a BA Hons painting, a master's degree in fine art, Chelsea college of Art, a Ceramics diploma at City Lit.

Current series of Oil Paintings: Barbados for me is a combination of many narratives; the lush tropical landscape, the industrial, abandoned architecture, the sugar cane factories of a bygone era, the rusting machinery in a hot climate and environment of decay, and the implicit social changes for women spanning many centuries. The empowering of women; social, educational, economic, political and psychological is hugely important. The connection to slavery and colonisation is contained within the paintings of sugar works and factories. The landscape portrayed is as important as it represents the emotional and narrative core of my artistic research. The images in my paintings are poetic metaphors with complex meaning.

I draw from my imagination intuitively using drawings and photographs. I notice marks that emerge automatically and how the colour's become embedded into the paint’s storytelling. Using an orbital sander creates erasure like a rubber, leaving a history of surface texture. Unctuous oil colour, the smell of paint creates a visceral need to engage with materials and of being in the moment. Arabella Ross. 2024

Ceramic sculpture: "The flowers that blossomed from darkness in a rich soil.’ Date: 2023 A clay studio infused with memories and identity; My inspiration for this sculpture originated from Matisse’s cut-out works in his last decade while he was working and living in the South of France. A rich metaphor for my sculpture is the “little garden” within and on the outer walls of the clay studio with intertwined plants and roses. A pale blue dove (cut-out) flying through as though in visitation, the french shutters revealing blue skies, the white balcony, and the lady with a rose in her hair holding a paintbrush, these metaphors are an expression of the soul of the artist with all the valuable tools of her trade; her imagination, easel, chair, paint-can and larger than life brushes contained within a space that is open to the heavens.

After the death of two parents in close proximity, the loss and grief, I wanted to create a poetic vessel that expressed the importance of building a transformative space that would provide fertile ground for further explorations in clay.

Arabella Ross. 2024