Elsa lives and paints in her cottage in the Cotswolds. Like many of the best abstract painters, Elsa’s work evolved from a traditional base. Wide open spaces, a solitary object or a single flower standing on its own, and sometimes even a paragraph in a book or a poem spark her inspiration to paint.

I prefer to paint in the studio from drawings – sometimes just rough scribbles of a subject that has captured my imagination. I can then work this into a finished painting. I need to feel the excitement that comes from a mixed palette of colour and tones that are in harmony with each other. It is very often the appeal of a small object standing alone in a large empty space, whether in the landscape or in flowers or still life that create an emotional response that needs answering. Finding rather than making the mark is the crucial thing.

Today, her inspiration derives in particular from the surrounding countryside, with its soft rolling hills and ancient stone villages, from her travels to Umbria and from the dramatic beauty of the far north of Scotland and the coast of Cornwall.

The construction and composition of the landscape sparked her interest in abstraction and the fascination of the ever changing colours textures and patterns. Her paintings are of the heart and mind, an emotional response to the landscape. Layers of oils scrapped with a palette knife and smoothed by brush strokes give us earthy colours with umbers and siennas on parched landscapes and vivid spring greens of the English countryside. Exquisite still lives emerge from the canvas through abstracted shapes of colour, captivating the viewer.

She has studied with Robin Child at the Lydgate Art Research Centre and his teaching continues to inform and inspire her work. His lectures and the subsequent intensive study of past masters such as Cezanne, Morandi, de Stael and Keith Vaughan have brought about an awareness and appreciation of art that changed the course of her painting. Elsa has exhibited widely in London and throughout the UK.