Profile
I was born in Kent and have lived most of my life in S E London and Kent. In 2024 I moved to the North West of England, and now live in Blackpool.
I studied Fine Art as a mature student at Ravensbourne College of Art and Design in the 1980s graduating in 1986.
On graduating I worked as a teacher in higher, further, secondary and adult education, in many disciplines including life drawing, water colour, drawing and painting. I worked with students of differing ages, abilities and levels. I also delivered teacher education to those working in the post 16 educational sector. Having gained an MA in Education I later moved into educational management.
After retiring in December 2017 as Principal of a large adult and community college in S E London I was able to intensify my practice as a painter and have also been able to devote more time to my interest in music, singing and writing lyrics for my band Rugosa Hips.
At Art College I developed my interest in a wide range of painters from Cezanne, Braque and Picasso to the American Abstract Expressionists and was drawn to the work of the Cornish school of painters, for example, Barns Graham, Heron and Lanyon. Post college I established an interest working from the life model and more latterly still life and interiors.
As still life become more of a preoccupation, the work of Giorgio Morandi , Prunella Clough, Henri Fantin Latour and Henri Matisse, has informed my visual exploration. More recently, which reflects some of the current direction in my own work, I have been looking at the work of the 19th century painter Marianne North, Serephinede de Senlis, Georgia O’Keefe.
My preparatory process starts with observational drawings/watercolour sketches. The ideas are then developed using these first explorations to make further pieces of work using mixed media – ink, soft pastels and gouache. I consider these works on paper to be pieces of work in their own right, but they are integral to the process of making final pieces of work using oils on canvas. Sometimes this will be a single painting but more likely a series of paintings from the same starting point
Over the last few years, plant forms have become my major inspiration, and the emphasis is about developing a visual language that will express my search for the innate beauty of my subject matter, but also about developing my search for my own visual voice to express my thoughts/emotions about being a woman; my body, my feelings, birth, life, aging, decay and finally death.
Rosie Eaglen
2026
