Flowers and Fruit - solo show by Kathy Pickles

Kathy Pickles GM's new solo show "Flowers and Fruit" opened yesterday in the Exhibition Room of the Old Library in Kirkwall on the Isle of Orkney in Scotland. It continues until 13th October 2018 and is open Monday to Saturday 10am to 5pm.

Her solo exhibition contains 64 botanical paintings in watercolour - mostly on paper but with some on vellum. 24 paintings were sold at the Preview Evening and another 8 in the gallery yesterday morning so Kathy got to the half way mark in terms of sales after the preview and 3 hours of being open to the public!  I gather her paintings on vellum are going fast!

If you're starting a collection, I'd very much recommend you take a close look....
​My experience of Kathy's paintings in the past are they priced to sell - and she almost always sells nearly all of them! 

​You can also read more about Kathy Pickles at the end of this post.

Flowers and Fruit

While not everybody can get to Orkney to see the exhibition, you can see most of the work in the show on Kathy's Facebook Page - Kathy Pickles Botanical Art or her website at www.kathypickles.co.uk. Plus she is a regular participant in the Botanical Artists Facebook Group where she also posts her new work. 

Kathy works - very fast - from observation (and never from photographs) and her paintings follow the seasons and what she's growing in her garden!

Crops of Botanical Paintings by Kathy Pickles - on her website

About Kathy Pickles
​

Kathy Pickles GM - with her 7th Gold Medal exhibit at the RHS London Botanical Art Show 2017

Kathy Pickles ​was born in London but has lived on Orkney since 1981. Her art education started with a Foundation Course at Canterbury College of Art. She also studied textile design at Winchester School of Art before going to Sussex University where she gained a degree in the History of Art.

She has won seven RHS Gold Medals (1991-94, 1996, 2015, 2017) - which is more than any other botanical artist I know!

• Her Gold Medal in 2015 was for 16 paintings of Fritillaria and Helleborus 
• The Gold Medal in 2017 was for 12 paintings of Clematis. Rachel de Thame bought one of her paintings!

You can view my Video Interview with Kathy Pickles at the RHS Botanical Art Show in 2015

Other achievements in the botanical art world include:

• She has also exhibited in a three person show at the Kew Gardens Gallery (1995-96)
• She designed the 1997 Chelsea Flower Show Plate which celebrated the Golden Wedding Anniversary of Her Majesty the Queen and Prince Philip. Later that year she was invited by Orkney Islands Council to meet the Prince of Wales and show him her original painting while he was in Orkney viewing the work of a number of local artists and craftsmen.
• her study of Mertensia maritima was one of the paintings of endangered species included in the special 250th anniversary edition of Curtis’s Botanical Magazine
  

Prestigious Botanical Art Collections which own her work include: 

• The Royal Botanic Garden Kew 
• The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh,
• the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation in Pittsburgh and
• the Shirley Sherwood Collection.

Her professional combines fine art with botanical illustration for commercial purposes and since 1994, she has designed over 150 designs for floral mugs for Dunoon Ceramics - including designs containing Scottish Wild Flower which included some Orkney favourites such as Primula scotica, Northern Marsh Orchid, Yellow Flag Iris (Iris pseudacorus) and Oyster Plant (Mertensia maritima).

She has been having solo shows on Orkney for the last 30 years and also works to commission.

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More about botanical artists and exhibitions
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ARTISTS: You can see more Contemporary botanical artists and illustrators around the world on my dedicated pages on my website​

• in the UK
• in North America (USA and Canada)
• in Australasia
• in Europe
• in Asia
• in Africa 
• ​in South America

EXHIBITIONS: You can find out about more Botanical Art Exhibitions ​& Collections - around the world. Current and future exhibitions in different parts of the world are listed or signposted on the following pages:

• the UK 
• Europe
• the USA and Canada
• Europe
• Australasia
• Africa
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