About

I am a contemporary painter, based in Cheshire, UK of British/Italian extraction and trained in Fine Art at the North Wales School of Art & Design. 

I have exhibited widely throughout Yorkshire, including solo shows at the Helmsley Arts Centre and Beningbrough Hall (National Trust) in North Yorkshire. My work has also been exhibited with the Society of Women Artists at the Mall Galleries in London 2015, 2016, 2020/2021 (online) & 2022, the Great North Art Show, Ripon Cathedral (2015), Ferens Art Gallery, Hull (2018), LFA (Leeds Fine Artists) Showcase 2019 (Huddersfield Art Gallery) & LFA Dean Clough 2018/19) and Highgate Contemporary Art Gallery “Interpretations of Landscape”(2020).

In 2018 I was delighted to be elected a member of Leeds Fine Artists, established 1874, one of the oldest regional arts bodies in the UK.  In 2023 I was honoured to be  elected a Member of the Society of Women Artists, a  British association of women artists established in 1855.

I have collections of work in the UK, US, Australia, Sweden, Germany and Eire.

I like to paint instinctively and spontaneously, working primarily in acrylics, often incorporating various media such as pastels, watersoluble pencils, graphite, collage and sometimes gold, silver and bronze leaf.

I enjoy the interplay of neutral tones with bright colour capturing light and atmosphere, preferring to get the ‘sense’ of a picture rather than relating too much detail.

Texture, sgrafitto (scratching through the wet, buttery paint) and big gestural marks are characteristic of my work, contrasting thick palette knife marks and brushstrokes with thin transparent glazes.

My paintings  often feature dramatic moorland landscapes, big skies and open plains, rocky coastlines and expressive and abstracted still life and flowers.

Please contact me for further information about works available to purchase.

Luisa Holden SWA