The Norfolk countryside, its wide open spaces and famous big skies, have provided the inspiration for a number of new works by artist Romey T Brough. Renowned for her monoprints, Brough's pictures evoke thoughts of wild landscapes. The exhibition, at the Church Street Gallery in Cromer, includes work inspired by a recent visit to the north Norfolk coast. "I find the Norfolk landscape calming after the hectic ups and downs of my life. I was having an exhibition and working hard to get it completed, so I escaped to a Norfolk holiday cottage over Christmas," said Brough. "I stayed in Brancaster, but visited the reserve at Titchwell. It was very cold, with clear blue skies and total peace - just brilliant. "I took loads of photos and was knocked out by the colours and the flatness. Of course I knew Norfolk was flat, but you don't get the big skies and flat washes of colour like that in Derby. "It inspired me so much, I've done loads of works, all slightly based on that trip," she added. Working in monoprints Monoprinting is a technique that involves painting on glass and transferring the image on to paper, producing a single image. It is this unique and somewhat unpredictable process that Brough finds so attractive. "When the paper print is removed, the glass is wiped clean, so each print pulled is an original. I'm fascinated by the contrasts of texture produced and above all by the way the viewer is required to slow down and contemplate what colour and texture can stimulate in their imagination," she said. "A lot of imagination comes into my work, my feelings about a place. It's not just about the colours, it's an emotional thing as well as factual.
 | | Tranquility Dawn - Norfolk (detail) |
"What keeps me doing them is striving to get the paint to behave how you want it to, you can never be absolutely sure what's going to happen. "Each day is different, my mood is different and that comes into my work... but once you've got the magic happening there's nothing you can do to stop it and I'll be working into the early hours of the morning. "Having thought about it, I suppose it's basically colour that drives me to paint. It isn't tone or line, it's all to do with colour. Colour is my thing, it's what I've always loved. "I think that's because I was short-sighted as a child and everything looked like an impressionist painting. You can play with colour and do surprising things. People have to stop to look properly at my work and that gets their imagination going," she added. Artistic calling Romey T Brough lives in Derbyshire. She studied at Harrow Art School in the early 1960s and subsequently in Italy at the Positano Art Workshop, but her love affair with art came at an early age. "I could always draw and paint - it was the only thing I was ever any good at. I sold my first picture when I was at school for 15 shillings. It was a copy of a postcard of Sandringham funnily enough," she said. "My school teacher said to my parents 'the best thing your daughter can do is go to art school' - which I did at 16 and it progressed from there," she added. Since her childhood calling, Romey has developed a reputation as a sensitive painter and illustrator. With her original monoprints she continues her explorations into media, technique and emotion. Her work is exhibited widely and collected around the world by galleries, corporations and private individuals. Monoprints by Romey T Brough can be seen at the Church Street Gallery in Cromer until Thursday 30 June, 2005. For more details call 01263 510100. | 
