Stacey Gledhill Artist

I did an interview recently with the good people at Canvas Rebel. They asked me about the craft of painting, what I’m most proud of and where painting ideas come from. I’ve put the link to the interview in my bio.

I like being asked questions. It gets me thinking about the choices I’ve made and what’s important to me. When I look at other artists’ work, it’s important to me that I feel something from it. It’s usually a certain feeling that I’m trying to share in my own work. I feel a kind of kinship with artists who do slow, thoughtful work. Artists who spend time looking at their lives , at nature, at people. It’s important to me to be always paying close attention to what’s happening around me, every day. Even when I’m not painting I’m looking and paying attention.

I had a baby and haven’t done much painting for 10 months. At times I’ve wished I could have but mostly it has been grounding to be present with my daughter and absorb the experience of being a mum and do day to day domestic things. I’ve been teaching and doing workshops and exhibiting which has felt good. I’ve been thinking about my work and why I paint. I have a tiny sketchbook full of scribbles. Some of the scribbles will become paintings over the coming months and years and some won’t.

BTW I’m happy to be planning an exhibition for the end of this year. You can join my mailing list on my website if you’d like to be notified of that and if you’d like first views of the available work.

It was a total pleasure to head to .gallery today to see A Room of One’s Own, a group show of work by 75 women artists.

I’ve long been an admirer of this wonderful gallery and the quality of work they show so am completely delighted to have been selected to be included with my painting The Lost Places.

What’s special about this show is that each of the artists has been asked to say a few words about their work and practice and these voice recordings can be found on the gallery website .

Vanessa has a real eye for hanging , a skill in and of itself, and I loved seeing today how each piece in the show sings and interacts with its neighbours, with different colours popping out and themes emerging within the groupings.

The show is on until 5th April, check opening times with .gallery or make an appointment . More info about each work can be found on their website.

I’m delighted to be included in this show opening next week at Irving Gallery, Oxford UK.

A group show of recent work featuring 75 women and nonbinary artists.

Opening at Irving Gallery on Saturday 2nd March
Join us for the weekend previews:

Saturday 2nd March, 12pm-5pm
Sunday 3rd March, 12pm-3pm

The participating artists are:
Alex Boyd Jones, Alison Berrett, Anna Morris, Aoibhin Maguire, Barbara Howey, Caroline Thomson, Caroline Yates, Carrie Stanley, Celia Mora, Charlotte Houlihan, Cherry McAlister, Chloe S Moncrieff, Clare Thatcher, Clare Wilson, Deirdre Kashdan, Ella Clocksin, Emily Kirby, Emma Davis, Fleur Patrick, Freya Croissant, Gemma Geraghty, Georgia Peskett, Hannah Wooll, Heather McAteer, Helen Cass, Helen Lees, Henny Burnett, Henrietta Roeder, Holland Cunningham, Issy Romano, Jane Cabrera, Jeni Johnson, Jennifer Nieuwland, Jo Lewis, Josephine Birch, Julie Cassels, Julie Caves, Justine Formentelli, Katarina Lalic, Kate Courtney-Taylor, Kate Hipkiss, Kate Shooter, Kathy Miller, Lara Davies, Laura Hope, Lisa Carter Grist, Lou Blakeway, Louisa Longstaff-Scales, Loveday Pride, Lucy Cade, Lucy Robb, Lydia Halcrow, Mandy Hudson, Marigold Plunkett, Martha Zmpounou, Mary West, Maureen Nathan, Maxine Sutton, May Everett, Mills Brown, Nick Grellier, Nicole Price, Rebecca Tucker, Samantha Fellows, Sarah Bold,
Sarah Wills-Brown, Scarlett Bowman, Sofia
Karakatsanis, Stacey Gledhill, Susan Absolon, Tamara Dubnyckyi, Tania Skeaping, Tereza Horácek, Virginia Bridge, Zoe De Caluwé

The Lost Places
Oil on wooden panel
50 x 75cm
Available

Today is the final day to see this painting as part of Casting Light, an exhibition of 80 paintings that celebrate light at Dundas Street Gallery, Edinburgh. The exhibition is available to view online until Christmas at castinglightexhibition.co.uk/exhibition (link in bio).

Where the Light Breaks
Oil on canvas
75 x 100cm
Available

On view today and tomorrow at Dundas Street Gallery , Edinburgh. 10 - 6pm

For more info www.castinglightexhibition.co.uk/exhibition (link in bio)

Chuffed to have our exhibition reach the front cover of Artmag UK ! Casting Light opens in Edinburgh next week at Dundas Street Gallery, featuring a selection of gorgeous paintings, prints and sculpture by Selina Wilson Artist , Daisy Perkins Art, Georgina Vestey Art and myself.

The painting featured on the cover is a recent one of mine titled “Where the Light Breaks” which will be exhibiting for the first time. Further details of the painting and exhibition can be found on the website www.castinglightexhibition.co.uk.

So exciting to be on the front cover of with ‘s beautiful, luminous painting, ‘Where the light breaks’, representing our exciting upcoming group exhibition ’Casting Light’, which starts next week!

The work can be viewed NOW on our website ahead of our opening next Thursday 30th of November and the exhibition continues (for 5 days) untill Monday 4th December.

We look forward to welcoming you to the Dundas Street Gallery.

If you would like further information, or to receive an invitation to our private view please sign up to our mailing list.
-Link to our website in my stories.

Thank you so much to

There is a tiny painting by Edouard Vuillard that just adore, called
L'Assiette d'oranges (The plate of oranges) . It’s just 14 x 10cm, and he probably painted it from life while sitting at a table. I love the blue and white pattern on the dish, the two-toned oranges, the barely noticeable figure and face sitting at the table. I can feel the love with which he painted each plate.

After I saw it I painted a little homage to Vuillard, which I named Nectarines. It’s the second picture here. I’m proud to be showing it for the first time in a group exhibition ‘Casting Light’, along with work by and in Edinburgh at the end of this month.

If you’re interested in seeing the work online before the show opens please join the mailing list at castinglightexhibition.co.uk or DM me to put you on the mailing list.

Grapes on a Spanish Plate. Oil on card. 15 x 20cm.

This tiny painting is part of my upcoming group exhibition ‘Casting Light’ (info in bio) which celebrates light as the main theme.

There will be roughly 80 paintings for sale, from , , and myself which will all be released online to browse in a week ! Join the mailing list at castinglightexhibition.co.uk to be notified of the online release.

Plate found in - a floor to ceiling stockpile of beautiful food-things. An absolute delight for this painter who is a self-confessed tablescape aficionado.

Who can guess the painting ? 20 years celebrating and the birthdays of the legends that are and . 🎈🍾🥂🎉🎨

Tis the season.

Thanks for plucking these.

Nomi Iona Gledhill-Baram. This little sprite has been with us for 4 weeks ♥️♥️♥️

Works on Paper is now live !

Delighted to have 4 works available in this online exhibition with

1. Daisies in a glass bottle. Oil on card. 42 x 30cm (unframed)

2. Lemons on a Spanish plate. Oil on card. 42 x 30cm (unframed)

3. Where the River Strays (sketch). Oil on card. 30 x 42cm (unframed)

4. The River, Winter. Oil on card. 30 x 42 (framed 38 x 48cm)

Cover image ‘Rest’

All work is available online now via the link in bio at .

We got our dog Arya 2 years ago just after I’d lost my second pregnancy. I had felt really conflicted about becoming a mother, my personal freedom has always been very important to me and I wasn’t sure how I’d deal with the certainty of having a child. But I was really really sad about the loss and for some reason started to endlessly watch dog rescue videos. After a long search we adopted Arya and as she got used to having a home with us her personality started to show and we discovered she was the silliest best dog in the world. She has some Daschund in her which means she’s long and low to the ground and some Pekingese which means she snorts like a pig and we’ve got to understand what the different snorts mean ♥️ Now I’m due to give birth any day and I’m so happy we get to have this silly dog and a baby too.

Ps I am still driven by a search for freedom and what it means , it just gets channeled into my work now . Painting is magical like that 😌

Where The Light Breaks
75 x 100cm
Oil on canvas

Warm sunny and soft . Painted this week when the actual weather was nothing like that

Some favourite from After Impressionism.

1. Vuillard
2. Bonnard
3. Degas
4. Vuillard
5. Mondrian

Many paintings and approaches I didn’t like , but great to see work altogether showing a moment in time when artists were aiming for something new.

“ The greatest thing she ever said to me was in 1943 after the opening of Oklahoma, when I suddenly had unexpected, flamboyant success for a work I thought was only fairly good, after years of neglect for work I thought was fine. I was bewildered and worried that my entire scale of values was untrustworthy. I talked to Martha. I remember the conversation well. It was in a Schrafft's restaurant over a soda. I confessed that I had a burning desire to be excellent but no faith that I could be. Martha said to me, very quietly. "There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep yourself open and aware to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. As for you, Agnes, you have a peculiar and unusual gift, and you have so far used about one-third of your talent."
"But," I said, "when I see my work I take for granted what other people value in it. I see only its ineptitude, inorganic flaws, and crudities. I am not pleased or satisfied."
"No artist is pleased."
"But then there is no satisfaction?"
"No satisfaction whatever at any time," she cried out passionately.
*There is only a q***r divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others."

- Agnes de Mille and Martha Graham

The Gardens at Dusk. Oil on card. 40 x 30cm | 16 x 12 in.

Night Swimming. Oil on canvas. 75 x 100cm / 30 x 40 in.

For about a year I’ve been listening to my partner learn on the piano the song Night Swimming by . Its a song that gives me strong visuals when I hear it. I guess it worked it’s way into my subconscious and when I was painting plein-air at one of my favourite spots of the river in Oxford I started to get images of a night painting and when I took these ideas back to the studio this is what came out. Figures, the moon, night, water. Although people in Oxford might know this spot it is not a painting of a specific place. Swimming at night is something I haven’t done in a long time but I like thinking about it

Current studio vibe: moons and bodies . Exploring new things, new shapes, new colour palette

Details of a new large work. I often find the abstract parts of figurative paintings the most interesting.

Valley Song
Oil on wood
50 x 75 cm / 20 x 30 in.

Thinking a lot of Bonnard’s table paintings , and backlit objects . In love with the texture and feeling of oils painted on wood 😌

More details on this one on my website

The Lost Places
Oil on wood
50 x 75cm / 20 x 30 in (unframed)

My latest work has been straddling the in-between space of the real and the imagined. Works such as this one feel like psychological spaces or dreamscapes rather than specific locations. This is new territory for me and feels exciting, like a journey to a new place.

New work including this one will be showing at my open studio event this weekend and next as part of Oxford Artweeks Festival.

Opening hours this weekend are :

Sat 20th 11-6pm
Sun 21st 11-6pm

14 Swinburne Road, Oxford , OX44BG

Stop by and say hello, I’ll be happy to meet you.

Where the River Strays
Oil on wooden panel
50 x 75cm / 20 x 30in (unframed)

New Work including this one will be on view this weekend and next for my open studio event for Oxford Artweeks Festival.

This weekend opening hours are :
Sat 20 - 11-6pm
Sun 21 - 11-6pm

14 Swinburne Road, Oxford, OX44BG.

All work will be available to purchase. If you come early on Saturday there might be coffee and bagels 😋 I’ll be happy to see you there.

Corners and shadows

Free as a Bird and Lonesome. 2023
Oil on wood
30 x 20 in. / 75 x 50 cm

A painting inspired by my adopted hometown of Oxford, UK.

A painting about a woman I saw at . Looking at me looking at her, she formed a painting in my mind instantly. It took a year swimming slowly round in my head, forgetting then remembering, before painting it. Oil on card. 8 x 6 in.

An imagined Scottish landscape oil on panel. 8 x 12 in.

My favourite n**e of all time is Desnudo / After the bath by Eduardo Rosales Gallinas which hangs in the Prado at Madrid. He reportedly painted it in one day, something I try to remember when I feel I’m starting to overwork paintings. The hand is barely painted at all and the raw linen shows through in many places. It’s absolutely breathtaking in its simplicity and I only realised when painting it myself how beautifully balanced the composition is. This is my copy, done for study purposes. It’s 1.2 m tall. I’m currently looking for a home for her. She needs a large space .

**efigure

Jug and Apples. Oil on wood . 60 x 70 cm / 24 x 28 in.

I’m excited to be having a studio sale this week with many paintings, studies and sketches from the last few years. Some real gems - Large Study of an Arabian Horse , from that time I worked in a palace in Saudi Arabia and spent my spare time in the stables (! true story). Also a huge beautiful n**e, plus many, many small colourful still lives. Everything will be made available to buy on my website this Thursday at 10 am GMT. Please add yourself to my mailing list (on my website) if you’d like to receive the reminder and link.

In progress. Oil on wood. Enjoying so much making something lighter, warmer. It takes a week to prepare the wood for painting on but it’s so worth it for the beautiful surface.