BRENDA HARTILL - ARTIST/PRINTMAKER

       Born in London and educated in New Zealand, Brenda returned to the UK on a NZ Arts Council grant to study at the Central School of Art and Design. She turned towards the theatre and after winning a UK Arts Council grant, she was seconded to the National Theatre at the Young Vic, after which she spent 10 years working as a theatrical designer in London. In the late 1970s she turned towards printmaking and set up her own London studio in 1983, producing a body of over 500 works before moving to the countryside near Rye in Sussex 5 years ago,

       Brenda Hartill’s main love is abstracting the essence of the landscape, in richly coloured textured works, often enhanced with silver and gold leaf. Her recent work is a series of collagraphs with energy, heat and coolness as a theme. Her early New Zealand experiences encouraged  an on-going fascination with the power of the earth: earthquakes, volcanoes, geology, erosion, as well as weather patterns, global warming, natural textures and universal forms.  She is best known for her embossed abstract collagraphs and etchings, as well as her collages and mixed media encaustic works, but occasionally returns to more representational imagery.

       She has written a book, published by AC Black in 2004: “Collagraphs and Mixed Media Printmaking, now in its third print run, and is currently working on a series of instructional DVDs. She occasionally offers courses and talks and she opens her studio every year in early December.

 Brenda is a member of the Royal Society of Painter Printmakers (R E), showing regularly in London at the Bankside Gallery, and the New Academy Gallery, and shows in many galleries countrywide including Cambridge, Swansea, York, Rye, Inverness, Hastings, Rochester, Liverpool, Nottingham, Stratford, Cirencester and Oxford, as well as galleries in Spain, Australia and New Zealand.  Her work is also in the collections of many large companies.  

for further information: www.brendahartill.com