Rosemary Lewis
As a child, Rosemary Lewis loved to draw and paint and was fortunate to have parents who encouraged her creativity. She grew up near the North Yorkshire Moors National Park, where family walks in the landscape played a significant role in inspiring her lifelong love of nature, the outdoors, and light.
She studied A-level Art and sold her first painting at 18. Alongside her interest in art, she also had a strong passion for dance and went on to attend the Rambert School of Ballet and Contemporary Dance, graduating from the Professional Dancers Course.
While studying dance, she continued painting and selling her work. After graduating, she felt increasingly drawn to explore art rather than pursue a career in dance. She went on to complete a foundation art course at St Martins College of Art and Design, after which she directed her own studies toward the techniques of late 19th- and early 20th-century realist and impressionist oil painters. She discovered that the discipline and focus developed through her dance training transferred naturally into learning realist oil painting techniques, allowing her to express in paint the emotions she had once conveyed through movement.
In recent years, she has become increasingly drawn to flowers as a subject, inspired by their graceful beauty, complexity, and personal childhood associations—her mother being a keen gardener.
She also enjoys working outdoors en plein air, painting landscapes and flowers, where changing light and seasonal shifts provide constant inspiration. She began exhibiting in 2008 and has since participated in numerous group and open exhibitions, including the ROI Annual Exhibition and the Discerning Eye. In 2010, she was awarded the Huxley Purchase Prize. Her work has been exhibited and collected in the UK and internationally. In 2015, she took a break from painting to care for her two young children and returned to her practice in 2018.
