Press Release

28 | 01 | 22
 

Bigger Than Us| Rebecca Styles

Grinneabhat Gallery, North Bragar, Isle of Lewis, Scotland -4th March to 30th April 2022

Momentum,oil on canvas board | Rebecca Styles

Throughout March and April, Grinneabhat gallery presents an exhibition of work by rising landscape painter Rebecca Styles. Located on the remote north edge of the Isle of Lewis, Grinneabhat's spectacular location is the perfect backdrop for a new collection inspired by the drama and beauty of the Outer Hebridean coast, by one of its newest resident artists.

Rebecca Styles was born in West Yorkshire.She is a recipient of a Visual Artist and Craft Makers (VACMA) Award, and a Creative Scotland Artist Bursary for her work involving local raw pigments and traditional paint making.She studied at Bradford College of Art, and later Somerset College of Art &Technology and Falmouth College of Art. She spent several years travelling and painting the landscape in some of the UKs most beautiful locations, including the Isles of Scilly, West Cornwall, Devon, and then, on her narrowboat ‘Puck', the beautiful rural counties of Gloucestershire and Derbyshire. In spring 2019, drawn by memories of her childhood holidays on the Isle of Arran, she began searching for a permanent home in the Outer Hebrides, acquiring a plot on the beautiful Isle of Lewis where she built her house and studio. This, her first Hebridean collection, she describes as "a worship of nature, an honest account of my emotional reaction to the drama and beauty of Lewis, a wilderness that makes you assess all you thought you knew about yourself, where everyone is small, everyone is vulnerable, and you are constantly surrounded by nature on a grand scale".

Building her own canvases and favoring earth colours and precious natural pigments, she embraces the visceral qualities of her materials, letting traces of canvas and emphatic brush marks add to the textural vibrance of her work. The beautiful, brute reality of nature untamed in this part of the world, the majesty of the rolling ocean, its powerful winds, and all the forces of nature creating an environment in constant flux are expressed with skill and passion by an artist intent on defining and sharing the "shock, terror, grace, push and pull that moved me so forcefully when I made these paintings". TitledBigger than Us, this exhibition is a celebration in paint of the unstoppable, ever-changing nature of the sea and its almighty power to move us.
 

Passage,oil on canvas | Rebecca Styles

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Print Ready 300dpi images for press use:

REBECCA STYLES Momentum, oil on canvas board
 

REBECCA STYLES Passage, oil on canvas 

Editors Notes

Rebecca Styles

Rebecca Styles grew up in Yorkshire where she attended Bradford College of Art before embarking on a Fine Art Degree at Falmouth College of Art. The wild Atlantic coastline of childhood holidays on the Isle Arran, along with a mixture of memories of the rugged and un-spoilt North Yorkshire moors, paved the way to her love of the untamed landscape. Rebecca now works from her home studio on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides, where the unique geology and dramatic vistas are a constant source of inspiration. She is a recipient of a Visual Artist and Craft Makers (VACMA) Award, and a Creative Scotland Artist Bursary for her work involving local raw pigments and traditional paint making. She is also an Elected Artist member of the Paisley Art Institute, an Associate Member of Visual Arts Scotland, an Artist member of the SSA and also An Talla Solais.

Rebecca Styles, Njordr, Tobson, Great Bernera, Isle of Lewis, Scotland UK.rebeccastylesart@gmail.comrebeccastyles.co.uk

Grinneabhat

Grinneabhat is a friendly cèilidh/meeting place on the edge of Britain, in the far northwest of Scotland, a place with an ancient language and an indigenous population deeply rooted in place, where nature and the elements are ever present. The building is community owned and run, and houses an exhibition and cultural space and a café. By visiting Grinneabhat you will be supporting sustainable community development.

Grinneabhat, North Bragar, Isle of Lewis, HS2 9DA, Scotland UK. Charity number - SCO44094info@bragararnol.org|grinneabhat.com

For further press information or additional images contact Mercedes Smith at Fine Art Communications director@fineartcommunications.co.uk | Tel 07825 270235 | www.fineartcommunications.co.uk