Cumbrian based UK artist, Maria Burton studies skies and landscape, making tangible the places and fleeting moments of time and energy that we recognise as full of awe. She works primarily within the northern Lake District, occasionally stretching to the east coast and to Scotland.
Centring around the Northern Lake District with light and colour as it’s medium, this body of work is the journey of a painter through place and time. There are brief excursions further afield but largely, these paintings represent Maria’s most loved landscapes near to her home in Penrith.
Like many, Maria was drawn into the beauty and drama of the Lake District year on year and relocated here in 2002. For the duration of 2017, having built a small foundation of painting knowledge over the previous few years through short courses across the country, Maria studied under Martin Kinnear at the Norfolk Painting School. This was a turning point and, adding further development of skills through the drawing course at Leith School of Art, Edinburgh and mentorship from Jane Couroussopoulos, Maria’s work is constantly evolving . Her pleasure in using paint to catch the sense of a place is clear. The brush strokes describe energy and movement, the colour catches changes of light and shadow with desaturated colours laying next to vibrancy.
Anyone who has walked in these landscapes, especially in active weather, will recognise the hues of varied times of day, times of year, that appear briefly in certain places. A small part of a fell in sun, a breakthrough of striking beams of light as clouds split apart for a moment, the blues of dawn or a winter’s day and none of this light or colour lies as beautifully anywhere else as it does in these places. At times, the colours, though glorious, are hard to believe but next time you walk, look closely, they are there somewhere as the sun moves across felltops or bracken, as shade moves across ridges and water.
Using mainly oils, Maria’s paintings evolve from sketches while fell walking, with photography making a minor reference source only rarely. It is evident that Maria takes immense pleasure in putting paint on surface and when someone connects with a work, she knows they recognise their moment when the skies have split and light either unfolds serenely or is thrown down with breathtaking illumination. She creates a sense of place and a moment in that place.
Maria Burton shows her paintings from 09:30 - 17:00hrs daily in the third floor Blencathra Gallery, Northern Lights Gallery, 22 St John’s Street, Keswick ’til Sunday November 25th, 2021.
Exhibition Paintings:
