Having worked in marketing and research for 25 years, I returned to university and obtained a first class degree in Visual Arts from Nottingham University.
Throughout my life, I have sketched and painted for fun. At school, I had to choose between art and music. Music won. But I always pursued my interest in art.
I now combine both my interests in my music paintings. My dissertation explored the phenomenon of synaesthesia, the ability of some people, myself included, to see colours and forms when listening to music. I paint all sorts of music – classical, contemporary, jazz, pop – and have a constant source of inspiration.
At this time, I also started to explore the medium of encaustic paint. I find the application of the wax almost meditative as I apply, rub through and apply again until I achieve a result I like. I love the randomness of the medium and find it especially good for expressing the effects of light. I’ve also used it in my music paintings.
In my first degree, and in my working life, and now in my free time, I spent a lot of time in Scandinavia. I studied in Sweden and now spend a lot of time on the Lofoten Islands in the north of Norway, staying with and exhibiting with artistic friends. It is the extremes of climate and landscape that I find uplifting and awe-inspiring. I also find inspiration from the Finnish landscape near where my son lives, where the light and landscapes are very different from the wild west coast of Norway.
In 2018 I moved to Bournemouth to be near the sea and to follow in the footsteps of our annual pilgrimage to Southbourne as a child. And it’s the sea of the Dorset coastline that I especially explore in all its changing light and movement. See my landscape paintings.
Freda Rhodes art 