Claire Wiltsher

Claire Wiltsher is an award winning painter whose work was recently acquired by the House of Lords to be exhibited as part of their permanent collection. Currently Hampshire Life magazine's Hampshire Artist of the Year, Claire's MA is in fine art, with a BA (Hons) in fine art painting. Her oil and mixed media landscapes combine layers of paint with fragments of collage. She scratches through sections of the painting to allow colours from underneath to emerge. Claire uses brushes and different sized palette knives to build up layers and create depth. Paint is also flicked or carefully thrown on selected areas, evidence of which can be found all over her studio floor! "I want to create evocative paintings of land and sea that show a sense of place - different weather conditions are key elements".

Influenced in part by Turner, Wiltsher uses light to often magical effect, while her passion for nature and the outdoors shines through in all of her work. Records and memories bring together her personal journey using layers of oil with fragments of collage to create texture and depth. The application of Wiltsher's paint perfectly portrays the energy, wilderness and natural turbulence of her subject matter, utilising an assortment of painting techniques.