Rosanne Barr

Rosanne Barr was born in 1981 in the village of Gartocharn on the southern shores of Loch Lomond and whilst still in her teens, she became Gold Medallist at Glasgow's Kelvingrove Art Galleries youth exhibition. After school, she attended Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art in Dundee, graduating in 2003 with First Class Honours. After her studies, she exhibited in London at the British Design Centre and at The Mall Galleries where she was awarded a Licentiate of Distinction by the Society of Designer Craftsmen. In 2009 Rosanne was shortlisted for the Barclays TSB Jolomo Landscape awards and since then her work has been selected for the Annual Exhibitions of the Royal Glasgow Institute of The Fine Arts and Paisley Art Institute. Rosanne currently exhibits her work widely across the UK with paintings in private collections around the world. A busy full-time artist, she now lives and works in Milngavie, her garden studio lying close to Allander Water, the gateway to the West Highland Way and the Scottish Highlands.

Rosanne creates tranquil and evocative memory-scapes. Her paintings are imagined places which she calls her 'Lands of Escape', but are based on her direct experiences in North West Scotland and Orkney, where she regularly visits with her young family. She is drawn to the remoteness of these areas with their immense skies, seeking out places to visit with no other people so that she can sit and contemplate the peace and quiet and take in the landscape and sounds around her.

Working in oils, Rosanne loves to get lost in her painting. Whilst on location, she chooses not to sketch or take photographs, feeling that these would tie her down too much to paint what she has recorded. She prefers to paint freely from her memories to create more spontaneous pieces, incorporating texture and different effects through a variety of brushes and palette knives, often leaving individual brush marks on her painting for effect. As a result, her distinctive abstract style heightens colours, simplifies shapes and blends lines, emanating a sense of peace and tranquility.