Virginia Waterhouse is a South London painter and printmaker. She began painting after a long career in education and completed her Foundation course at the Mary Ward Centre. She graduated in Fine Art from the Sir John Cass School of Art, London Metropolitan University in 2012.
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​Welcome to my website. My name is Virginia and I paint. I paint colour. I paint music and poetry. I paint empty, half-imagined landscapes. I paint the weird and wonderful things that emerge from my painting arm.
My work reflects my three great passions: art, literature and music. It is constantly evolving as I seek the best way to communicate a particular idea or feeling. I often work in series, exploring a subject through different colour combinations or variations on a composition.
A project on Kandinsky and the Blaue Reiter group first encouraged me to explore how colour and gesture can evoke the emotions and memories we experience when listening to music or reading a poem. Kandinsky was synaesthetic - he experienced colours as sounds - and this led me to explore other artists and musicians who had the same condition and to experiment with the way colour affects our response. My most recent exhibition Wednesday is Indigo was inspired by a book on synaesthesia which included a study of people who experience days of the week as colours.
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Poetry and music have inspired several themes, including Milton's Paradise Lost, Messiaen's symphony Turangalila and Steve Reich's setting of Desert Music. My latest project is based on the John Steinbeck novel, Sweet Thursday.
Colour is almost always the starting point of my paintings. I do not like a blank white surface so begin by covering the whole canvas with a coloured ground. Then I wait to see what emerges. Though I have an idea in mind, I do not plan my paintings in any detail but allow spontaneous and instinctive gestural marks to lead me.
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I work in a variety of mediums including oils, acrylic, ink, watercolour and charcoal. I am based in the ASC studios in Streatham Hill, south London.
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BIOGRAPHY
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Putney High School, 1953 - 1961
St Anne's College Oxford, BA English 1961 - 1964
Leeds Metropolitan University, MBA School Leadership 1993 - 94
Sir John Cass, London Metropolitan University, BA Fine Art 2008 - 12
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SOLO SHOWS
EXHIBITIONS
2020 Wednesday is Indigo
2018 Between a Rock and a Hard Place
2015 A Taste of Seasons
Cave Pimlico
Cave Pimlico
Illilli, Streatham Hill
GROUP SHOWS
2019 Where What
2018 Ground Stone Clear Water
2017 Castles in the Air
2016 Where Was I
2016 Ellipse
2016 Ellipse
2015 The Windows are Illuminated
2014 Friends Open
2014 House on Fire
2014 Figuratively Speaking
2013 Libero
2013 Promenade
2013 The View from Here
2012 Cass 2012
2012 Avant Premiere
2011 And She Was
2010 Presence
2010 Light Dreams
gASP Gallery
Meunier Gallery
Schloss Leckow, Poland
A and D Gallery
Angelika Studios, High Wycombe
Remise Gallery, Berlin
Embassy Tea Gallery
Dulwich Picture Gallery
Embassy Tea Gallery
Espacio Gallery
1 Paget Street EC1
Mile End Art Pavilion
Espacio Gallery
London Metropolitan University
Arbeit Gallery
Artisan 80
Mile End Art Pavilion
A and D Gallery
