Rose Shuckburgh
25% of sales will be donated to Rose's nominated charity OutRight Action International
We are excited to collaborate with Rose Shuckburgh to launch new and exclusive works on paper fundraising for Rose's nominated charity, OutRight Action International to help their invaluable work supporting the LGBTQI community suffering from the war in Ukraine. Rose's new works have been inspired by her Welsh roots and the countryside where she lives, the patchworks of shapes within the body of a hillside, and the thin paths that stretch across them like fine threads. Two pieces from this series are inspired by the Welsh figure Arianrhod, who is the Welsh goddess of the moon and of cycles.
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Rose Shuckburgh is a UK based artist whose practice encompasses painting, printmaking, and film. Shuckburgh’s recent work depicts a personal and emotional response to place, centring around the experience of the lone figure isolated within their surroundings, and the energy created from two forms meeting. This push and pull between isolation and connection is a constant dialogue throughout her work. Spending time in the natural landscape, with standing stones, or rock or land formations moulded over time, she felt as if she were in the presence of another body, one that was filled with the memories and emotions of that place. Moving between representation and abstraction, these forms and the human figure are depicted as vessels of feeling, placed within a charged stillness. Her work catalogues a sense of familiarity and of the passing of time in relation to the place she grew up in The Elan Valley, Wales. Shuckburgh recently graduated from City and Guilds of London Art School and is the recipient of the Royal Watercolour Society New Graduate Award (2022), The Richard Ford Award (2019), she was shortlisted for The Painter-Stainer’s Company Student Award (2018), was the winner of The Principal’s Prize for Outstanding Work at The Foundation Show (2016).
Rose's artwork is available to purchase with interest-free instalments for UK buyers. You can read more about our interest-free instalments and eligibility here.
Artwork is also available to purchase with Own Art interest-free instalments, spreading the purchase over 10 monthly interest-free instalments with no deposit. If you are interested in purchasing with Own Art please email info@wilder.gallery or use the Contact Us form and we will assist you with the simple and straightforward online process. A UK delivery fee of £10 will be added to UK orders and £15 to overseas orders. Many thanks.
WG: The soft and layered richness of colour is integral to your work. Would you mind talking about your colour choices?
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RS: Colour is a very important element of my work, which I use to convey the emotional sensation of the forms depicted. My use of composition is somewhat distilled, which works to emphasise the significance of colour in each piece. Artists who inform my use of colour range from Italian and Flemish early renaissance painters whose work I studied during a 2019 residency at The Prado Museum, Madrid, to Milton Avery and Helen Frankenthaler. I am also interested in the pairing of colours, how colours can change depending on which colours they sit alongside. When I was 19 I had a Summer job working as a studio assistant for Vanessa Jackson RA, who taught me about this concept of colour theory and her work really informed my use of colour. Often people imagine more diluted tones when picturing watercolour paintings, and I feel driven to achieving a deeper richness of colour than expected from the medium whilst retaining the softness of watercolour.
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WG: The textual quality and intensity of your work on handmade paper is so beautiful. Can you tell us a bit more about your process and your connection to watercolour and charcoal and the qualities of these materials that you are drawn to.
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RS: I paint using layers to try to create a quiet strength that builds out of the subtleties of watercolour, to achieve colour which hums with a soft energy. The handmade rag paper I use lends itself well to this and I love its beautiful, rough surface. I believe there is a rawness and an intimacy to working on paper. I’m drawn to charcoal for its depth of tone and soft, expressive energy when applied to paper with a rough surface. I started using 8mm film to create short films in 2020, and the hazy, energetic quality of the film really inspired my style of painting as well as my drawings in charcoal and monoprinting. I really enjoy working in many different mediums, as I feel it helps move the work forward and keeps me analysing how I use materials.
WG: What does an average studio day look and feel like?
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RS: I live in the Elan Valley in mid Wales, and have a studio in a beautiful stone barn with wooden beams. It is definitely the most beautiful space ever I have worked in! I work part time for an arts and community charity, and then spend the rest of my week and some of the weekend in the studio. I almost always have the radio on or l listen to music, to artists such as Nick Drake, Gillian Welch or Kate Bush. Music with poetic lyrics creates a great atmosphere for working on small works, but if I am working on large pieces I tend to listen to more high energy music. There is an album of reggae covers of Bob Dylan songs which is a favourite of mine. If a good song comes on I like to make the most of having no one watching me and have a dance! It’s good for keeping warm in Winter as well. I tend to have a few pieces on the go simultaneously, as often I have to factor in drying times for the layers of paint. The works tend to organically form into small bodies of work, and I prefer for them to be viewed in this way rather than as stand alone pieces.
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WG: Please tell me a bit more about what your creative process is like?
RS: Often inspiration for a series of works starts with spending time in the landscape photographing, drawing and writing notes. I also take inspiration from poetry, and enjoy the process of turning words into forms. I make a lot of drawings in and out of sketchbooks and rework ideas until I am set on one. When watercolour dries it is harder to change a mark, and so I tend to plan out each painting beforehand. In contrast, charcoal can be manipulated at all stages of the process, and so I find it freeing to start each piece in charcoal without a clear idea of how it will end up.
WG: I heard you speak on a podcast about how you use your body to create shapes and forms that inform some of the figures in your works. To what extent, if any, are these works self portraits?
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RS: I make work from my own experience, so it felt important that I use myself as the subject depicted. By using my own body rather than a model I also aim to reduce any sense of voyeurism and instead present a female figure in control of their representation. I have been inspired by the work of Ana Mendieta and Maya Deren in how they use themselves in their work, which makes for an interesting dialogue of being the artist and model. However, I have been moving further into abstraction and will take inspiration from shapes made with my own body, but the end result will be less representational. I think my work has maybe been most effect when it invokes a sense of a human body or natural form without being overly descriptive. I think the majority of my work does balance on the line of being self portraits… and I think I am still working out to what extent they are!
WG: Has the pandemic had an impact on your practice and if so how?
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RS: It definitely impacted my practise. I was living on a houseboat in London during my final year of my BA, and so I moved back to my parent’s home in mid Wales for the first lockdown in order to have the space to continuing make work for my assessments. Able to spend much more time surrounded by my subject matter, this period actually lay the ground work for how I work now. Spending prolonged periods of time in the presence of standing stones or bodies of water which inspire my work, you notice more details and feelings that would be otherwise missed. The first lockdown was a very creative time, and I was working alongside my friend and wonderful artist Amelie Peace. 2020 was a very strange time to graduate, but the fact that the pandemic caused the art world to digitalise itself so much has meant that I don’t feel quite so out of the London loop having decided to move to Wales after graduating.
WG: Could you kindly share a bit about your connection to your nominated charity and why you have chosen this particular charity?
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RS: It is an incredibly overwhelming time globally and I think we all feel there is so much to be done, however I have chosen OutRight Action International as my nominated charity as they provide direct action to members of the LGBTQI community suffering from the war in Ukraine. Trans women have been prevented from crossing borders if their passports still read ‘M’, and trans men are being gaslit into staying and fighting by Ukrainian authorities. With huge shortages of medical supplies, many members of the LGBTQI community are in urgent need of hormone therapies and HIV medications. These are just a few of the reasons why I feel it is important at this time to support this marginalised group and remind them that we haven’t forgotten them.