Artists' Quarter

After 25 years of working in the retail environment and feeling unfulfilled, I decided to return to education and study my lifelong passion for art.

In 2001, I began an Art and Design foundation course at Greenwich Community College, in London and later graduated with an honours degree in Fine Art from the Scarborough campus of the University of Hull.

It was a fantastic journey and I now work happily as a full-time artist in my home town of Scarborough.

Detail from 'Plasticised'.

The human form is the main focus in my work, which is used as a means of expression to suggest an emotion, a state of mind or an inner psychological world.

My ideas begin with photographs or small studies that act as preliminary work for larger paintings. I sometimes work from life and enjoy experimenting with different materials. I have incorporated many mediums into my pieces, such as ink and acrylic, oil and wax, varnish and gold leaf.

I have a fascination for a sense of history and gain inspiration from anything related to antiquity. I am attracted towards rust or eroded surfaces that show the passage of time and I have a special interest in classical Greek sculpture.

Detail from 'Fired Up'.

Living by the sea, I also find inspiration from the patterns and textures of stone and rock formations on the beach.

Early in 2007, I was selected to show work in a photographic show in the USA. The exhibition called Indwelling: Living in a Female Body was a fundraising and celebratory event held by the Women’s Therapy Centre Institute, at the Cooper Union, New York.

In September 2007, I was pleased to be invited to do a solo show at the newly opened Back o' the Shop Gallery, in Terrington, near York.

 I am now working towards a solo show at Pocklington Arts Centre, in September 2008.

Angela Chalmers