Colleen Conti - Fine Artist

I am a Sussex landscape artist living and working in Horsham. I was the Head of Art at a Secondary School for 24 years until retiring in 2020 to focus entirely on my own work.

My work originates with landscape, which I am approaching increasingly intuitively, as this allows me the freedom to focus on the essence of a particular place, and my own experience of being in it. I enjoy the co-existence of natural and cultivated aspects of the landscape, its resulting patterns and rhythms and how these can be translated through the physical process of painting: gestural brushstrokes, layering, revealing and re-shaping. The changing light, colours, and forms of the landscape through the seasons has a direct influence on my choice of subject and palette. My paintings convey a sense of the original places which inspired them, filtered and shaped by my process and emotional insight.

Qualifications

BA Hons Fine Art – Brighton Polytechnic

Post Graduate Art Teacher's Certificate – Goldsmith's College

Post Graduate Diploma, Printing & Publishing Studies – London College of Printing

MA English Literature – Sussex University

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Exhibitions and Awards

1985 Royal Society of Painters in Watercolours Annual exhibition, Mall Galleries, London. Windsor & Newton Student Prize

1988 Solo exhibition paintings, Horsham Arts Centre

1990 Solo exhibition life drawings, Brighton Library

1992 Brighton Festival Exhibition at Varndean Sixth Form College

         Group exhibition of life drawings, Gardner Centre, Sussex University

         Sussex Open ‘Land & Sea’, Brighton Museum & Art Gallery                

1993 Contributor to ‘Teachers in Art’, Gardner Centre Sussex University

1995 Sussex Open ‘Boundaries’, Brighton Museum & Art Gallery

1998 Contributor to ‘Those Who Can’t, Teach’, exhibition West Sussex Art Teachers, Horsham Arts Centre

2016 Millais Art Teachers exhibition, Capitol Arts Centre, Horsham

2021 International Juried Art2Life Exhibition

         Highly Commended Award in the Association of Sussex Artists Annual Exhibition, Horsham

2022 Shortlisted for Tebbs International Art Award

         Selected for Tebbs open call on-line exhibition

         Association of Sussex Artists Annual Exhibition, Drill Hall, Horsham

         The Victoria Institute as part of Arundel Arts Festival

2023 The Guildford Arts Summer Exhibition, Yvonne Arnaud Theatre 

         Curated exhibition of Sussex artists at Horsham Museum

         Long-listed for the Visual Arts Open

         Highly Commended Award in the Association of Sussex Artists Annual Exhibition, Horsham

         Association of Sussex Artists at Parham House, Sussex 

         Selected for the ING Discerning Eye, Mall Galleries London

2024 Winner of 'Abstract' category of Pier Road Gallery Open Call 

I am currently represented by the Fowey River Gallery, Cornwall, and Artologie Gallery, Cuckfield, West Sussex