Exhibition runs 11th October to 23th October 2011

Private View Tuesday

11th October 7-9pm

Caroline Gatehouse demonstrated artistic ability from an early age, and was producing accomplished figure drawings whilst still at school. She went on to study Art and Design at Cheltenham & Gloucester College of Art. After her Foundation year, she specialised in Design and Display, and the fertile environment at the college encouraged her to experiment with a diverse range of media and enabled her to develop various styles and techniques. During her time at college, she completed a period of work experience at the English National Opera, and was selected for a permanent apprenticeship with them which, very regrettably, was a victim of cuts in their funding.

Despite being trained as a designer, she quickly recognised that her first love was Fine Art, and began to create a body of work using, initially, watercolour and gouache as her principle media, producing landscapes and figure portraits in a pointilliste style.

Basing herself in Cheltenham, she regularly visited St. Ives, where she integrated with many of the locally based artists and sculptors, and produced a series of paintings of the life of the area. By this time, she had begun to sell some of her work, and was taking odd commissions from Clients who discovered her through word-of-mouth.

More recently, she has begun to produce multi-media work, which is more highly stylised than her usual output, and which has allowed her to experiment with subject matter and mood, and which she sees as “work in progress”.

Caroline Gatehouse paints for her own pleasure, and her work is very personal to her. As a result, she doesn’t take herself too seriously which, she feels, distances her from what she often regards as the pretentious and self-important world of “Art”.