Series Spotlight - Earth Matters by Tuema Pattie

Dublin-born Tuëma Pattie studied both in Ireland, at the Belfast College of Art, and in England, at the Morley College in London. These periods of her life, living in Belfast and London, were reflected in her art, often using urban scenes as subject matters. After taking a break from focusing on art to raise her children, Tuëma moved out of London and began to travel to a wide range of locations, from Antarctica to Spain, Uzbekistan to her new permanent home of West Sussex. Pattie often paints from ‘real life’ and en plein air, capturing the energy of the landscapes directly in front of her, injecting into her work the unique colour and the time of day, the feeling of each location exactly as and when she is painting it.

Tuëma’s works are expressionist, she believes ‘the facts are there – it’s how one brings them to life that is the magic’. These prints include sites and sights that take you straight to Pattie’s travels, including frosty Finnish landscapes and shimmering Venetian canals as well as views a bit closer to home, from Scottish peninsulas to Irish counties to scenery from her West Sussex home. Although she always starts with structure and sketching, her experimental and abstract landscapes are simultaneously explosive and energetic, fluid and fluent.