RACHEL ASHTON

Scottish artist, Rachel Ashton, completed her foundation in Art and Design in Glasgow in 1994, then spent some months travelling in Europe, before returning to her native Banffshire to work as an artist. She then began working in her own studio at the Barnyard studios and Gallery in Garmouth, where she mounted her first joint exhibition in 1996. She moved to Fife in 2000 with her husband, artist, Charlie Roy and their two young children. Between 2002 and 2007, Rachel and Charlie ran Northern Eye, Studio & Gallery in Ceres, near St Andrews. They closed the gallery in preparation for moving back to the North East in April 2007.

Rachel’s distinctive style developed from painting the beautiful hillscapes of Banffshire. Her work is bright and contemporary, and is all about line and form. She uses the different effects of strong light to break up the land and create, often abstract, shapes and patterns but within a representational structure. This style carries over in to still life and figurative subjects from time to time.

When painting coastal scenes she uses a palette knife to render the subjects harder manmade lines and as a result her style has a rawer and less worked look. She works predominantly in oil and acrylic.Her landscapes have gained popularity since 1998 and she has already enjoyed considerable success in Banffshire, Moray, Perth, Fife, Bridge of Allan, Glasgow, Dundee and Oxford and has had her work featured in the Leopard Magazine and Scottish Field.