Hartill, Brenda
Born in London, Brenda Hartill emigrated to New Zealand with her parents, in the late fifties, and was educated there, graduating FA honours at the Elam School of Fine Art Auckland. She returned to London in the late sixties, on a New Zealand Arts council grant as a graduate student at the Central School of Art and Design.In the early eighties, she turned towards printmaking and has successfully published her own work since.
Brenda Hartill’s recent work is a series of collagraphs with energy, heat and coolness as a theme. This followed a series of works, which explores deep space and the universe. Her on-going fascination with erosion, weather patterns, natural textures and universal forms, lead to her current images. Best known for her embossed abstract collagraphs and etchings, as well as her collages and mixed media works, using encaustic wax to embed found natural objects, as well as print elements and collage. However her main love is abstracting the essence of the landscape, in richly coloured textured works, often enhanced with silver and gold leaf. She has written a book with Richard Clarke, published by AC Black in 2004: “Collagraphs and Mixed Media Printmaking”.
She is a member of the Royal Society of Painter Printmakers (RE), showing regularly at the Bankside Gallery, London, and at the New Academy Gallery, Windmill St. She often shows in the RA Summer Exhibition and the National Print Exhibitions in London, as well as many solo and mixed shows worldwide. Her work is in the collections of many large companies, including BP, Bank of England, Global and BT, She lives in Sussex, and has a studio there as well in Gaucin, Southern Spain.