SPLASHES OF COLOUR
West Country seascapes and scenes awash with bold vivacity
The Liverpool-born painter Emily Powell relocated to a seaside village in Devon five years ago for her art; she now creates bold canvases from her fisherman’s cottage overlooking the bay. ‘The brightness of the light here attracted me,’ says Powell. ‘The sea changes hue every day, so different shades of turquoise and green come into my paintings.’ Her works are influenced by the ‘everyday happiness’ she encounters, from a bird carrying berries in its beak to seals frolicking in the nearby cove. Joyful, too, is her palette of intense pigments, inspired by the Harlem artist Faith Ringgold’s use of colour. ‘If you put a red and a pink next to an orange and gold, you can really warm and uplift somebody,’ she says. bt www.emilypowellstudio.com