Anne Winstanley Wood

Inspired by the Surrey Hills, North Yorkshire and South Downs, Anne creates joyful, semi-abstract landscapes which are characterised by layers of gorgeous colours, expressive mark making and rich texture. Her mixed-media paintings explore nostalgia, identity, and belonging, linking her northern roots with her present life. Her work blends playful imagination with a deeper reflection on our relationship with the natural world. Having grown up in a northern mill town surrounded by wild moors and hills Anne's art often takes its roots from her family's heritage - resilient farmers and mill workers whose lives were shaped by the landscape around them. Initial sketches of lines and forms observed in the landscape are then developed through layered acrylic paint, glazes, pastels, oil sticks, ink, and collage, creating tactile surfaces that evoke weathered rocks distant hills and uplifting, lyrical scenes full of movement and energy. Small houses, angular trees, and stone walls often appear, adding a narrative quality that captures both memory and place. Anne graduated in Fine Art in 1984 at the University of Reading and pursued a career in music education, completing an MEd in Creative Arts at the University of Exeter. Her work has been exhibited and commissioned by collectors in the UK and USA. Anne exhibits in group shows in Surrey, Sussex, and Yorkshire, in local galleries and is Exhibition Organiser for Leatherhead Art Club. She is a member of Wildwood Artists whose 'My Mind's Eye' exhibitions take place in the historic building of West Horsley Place. "Anne's stories flow through her work, the eye travelling around the world she has created, up and down the rolling hills, the dry stone walls and around the bending lanes." Emily from @artistdiaries