The natural world fills me with curiosity and wonder and I try to share this through my drawings and paintings.
My work is grounded in the close observation of nature and explores the rhythms and patterns found in different landscapes, from a lake near my home to the Scot’s pines in the Ashdown Forest and humble pebbles on a south coast beach.
I often begin by drawing or painting on location, capturing the sensations of sight, touch and sound through mark making. These works are further developed in my studio.
I have a BA Hons in Fine Art from Central St Martins and a BTEC in Contemporary Art Theory and Practice from Chelsea College of Art. Committed to working as an artist since 1996, I also teach drawing and painting to adults and young people, and passionately believe that anyone can learn the skills to be able to draw realistically with proper guidance.
My work is grounded in the close observation of nature and explores the rhythms and patterns found in different landscapes, from a lake near my home to the Scot’s pines in the Ashdown Forest and humble pebbles on a south coast beach.
I often begin by drawing or painting on location, capturing the sensations of sight, touch and sound through mark making. These works are further developed in my studio.
I have a BA Hons in Fine Art from Central St Martins and a BTEC in Contemporary Art Theory and Practice from Chelsea College of Art. Committed to working as an artist since 1996, I also teach drawing and painting to adults and young people, and passionately believe that anyone can learn the skills to be able to draw realistically with proper guidance.
Jane Nash meets Annabel Kapp, Interview 2018
There is an honesty in Annabel Kapp’s work, a sense that she has captured a moment and that her paintings can just ‘be’.
As an artist, her work speaks of a deep connection to nature and the landscapes around her: studies of a lone tree in a London park, paintings of the canopy of Scots Pines in the Ashdown Forest or capturing the ever-changing views of the lake adjacent to her Sussex garden,
In her latest series of work, The Lake Paintings, begun in 2016, Annabel reveals a painterly language that acknowledges her strengths of composition and form whilst introducing a playful quality with a freer, less formal approach: painting with sponges on long willow sticks to encourage looser marks, allowing paint to dribble, pool and run, being open to what the painting gives back.
She has strived to engage all of her senses when responding to the lake setting: feeling the physical presence of the tree, its branches reaching out into the lake and its shadows cutting through the water’s surface; listening to the rushing of the water as it topples down a weir; observing the ever-changing movement and form of the lake's surface. All of these elements have been held and captured in her mind’s eye, through calm contemplation of her surroundings and numerous studies. These elements have been transformed into recurring motifs, continually explored and reinvented.
“It’s almost as though I don’t need to look at the lake any more: it’s in me. I have to trust, just by making marks, I’ll find the subject coming out.”
As an artist, her work speaks of a deep connection to nature and the landscapes around her: studies of a lone tree in a London park, paintings of the canopy of Scots Pines in the Ashdown Forest or capturing the ever-changing views of the lake adjacent to her Sussex garden,
In her latest series of work, The Lake Paintings, begun in 2016, Annabel reveals a painterly language that acknowledges her strengths of composition and form whilst introducing a playful quality with a freer, less formal approach: painting with sponges on long willow sticks to encourage looser marks, allowing paint to dribble, pool and run, being open to what the painting gives back.
She has strived to engage all of her senses when responding to the lake setting: feeling the physical presence of the tree, its branches reaching out into the lake and its shadows cutting through the water’s surface; listening to the rushing of the water as it topples down a weir; observing the ever-changing movement and form of the lake's surface. All of these elements have been held and captured in her mind’s eye, through calm contemplation of her surroundings and numerous studies. These elements have been transformed into recurring motifs, continually explored and reinvented.
“It’s almost as though I don’t need to look at the lake any more: it’s in me. I have to trust, just by making marks, I’ll find the subject coming out.”