INTRODUCING
CHARLOTTE
GRIDLEY Driven to create the most breathtakingly beautiful photorealistic portraits in oils, this gifted and incredibly talented young artist’s work will be on display for all to experience and enjoy in her first exhibition at the prestigious Iona House Gallery in Woodstock, Oxfordshire from 28th March until 10th May. Phil Strachan of Strangebrew introduces us to yet another of his far from bland and highly talented friends – on this occasion, the 21 year old daughter of ex Rally Driver and Motivational/Keynote Speaker Penny Mallory who featured in the last issue of B4.
Charlotte Gridley is one of the UK’s most gifted young photorealistic Wildlife and Animal Portrait artists, painting for individuals, galleries and interior designers using fine brushes and smooth surface panels to create hyper realistic paintings. She specialises in oil paintings of animals, working either from favourite photographs supplied by the owners in the case of pets or as is most often the case with respect to wildlife, photographs taken by herself. When Penny first introduced me to Charlotte’s work, I was absolutely blown away by the attention to detail and her ability to capture each and every strand of hair and glint in the eye and unique personality of every subject with her highly detailed style of painting. Charlotte’s art journey began at the age of 12 when she was offered an Art Scholarship during secondary education. Since then she has been fortunate enough to be commissioned to undertake many portraits which have greatly expanded her portfolio. Charlotte, You must be very pleased that your work will soon be on show in such a well established and highly respected Oxfordshire Gallery with a reputation for showcasing high quality affordable art. Yes Phil. I am absolutely thrilled to have been chosen to exhibit my work at the Iona House Gallery in Woodstock. I am so excited because this will be my first gallery exhibition and this article will give everyone some idea of what to expect if they decide to visit it. 114
That is true Charlotte, the accompanying photographs do go some way to showing the high level of detail and quality of your work but as I myself know from experience, they really do have to be seen in the flesh to be fully appreciated. Seeing really is believing!
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What I am trying to do is to capture and convey the individual personality and character of my subjects and this is especially important when I am commissioned to paint and almost bring to life a treasured family pet
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For this article, I have deliberately selected and shown here a broad cross section of my work covering pets, wildlife and still life but most of my work involves animals, either beloved family pets or wildlife of all types as is increasingly the case. Why have you chosen animals as your subjects. Charlotte, what is the fascination? I love animals, Phil – and I always have done, to the point that I have been vegetarian since I was 8. What I like to do is to paint and capture animals in a WWW.B4-BUSINESS.COM
