Shirley Trevena

Shirley Trevena



"I was born in Brixton, London. My mother and her mother were both dancers and singers. My father worked in the making of fantastic films and television. My background as a child was full of theatre, circus and, most exciting of all, cinema. All that colour on a big screen has to have influenced my colourful compositions.

One day, after many years working in local government, I was given a box of watercolour paints and discovered that painting was what I was meant to do all along.

Since I resigned from my planning job over 25 years ago to become a full-time artist, I have had the most wonderful adventure in discovering what marks I want to put onto paper and how to make colours sing.

I enjoy working with watercolours and mixed media, my subject matter mainly still life, but I have been known to branch out into abstract landscape, monoprinting and pen and ink work.

I have a sort of love-hate relationship with painting. I would rather do anything than start a painting: clean the oven, make lists or even do the ironing. But once I’m in the studio and the first marks are on the white paper, I go into a world of my own, oblivious of everything except colour and form. I find my creativity so hard to start up and even harder to walk away from.

As well as painting I like to play the piano, watch TV and do crazy knitting."

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