Arati Reddy-Devlin

“I dream my painting and then I paint my dream.” - Vincent van Gogh

"I completed my Fine Art Printmaking postgraduate at Brighton University, England in 1986 after completing my degree in Graphic Design in 1984. In 1986, I was also awarded a British Council Scholarship to study Fine Art Printmaking at the Ljubljana Art Academy in Slovenia. This was a pivotal point that enhanced my technical skills and understanding of traditional printmaking processes and continues to guide my approach in creating my artworks. Following this scholarship, I trained to be an Art and Design teacher. Between 2009 – 2013, I lived on a small island near Dubrovnik, Croatia, where the vastness of sky, shifting light on the sea and abundance of natural forms and scenery around our house up on a hill profoundly influenced my landscape drawings.

As a trained printmaker I usually work backwards in my work, seeing images as layers of shapes, forms, colours and patterns. My black and white landscapes start as line drawings that force me to be highly selective in my choice of shapes. These landscapes often start from the bottom of the page, creating distinct positive and negative shapes. This process has encouraged me to see the micro rather than the macro to capture the complexity of the natural world beneath my feet and around me. The discipline of observing fine detailing seeps into my current artworks and has evolved by the use of mechanical parts and technology interwoven with natural forms. These new works fuse my love of Sci-fi, Medieval Art and organic forms, to mirror the natural world and create a more complex type of micro-world."