Lorraine Frances-Rees

I started drawing and painting portraits in earnest when I was 13 and won a BBC National portrait competition when I was 15 (UK). I studied “A” level art and art history. Although I studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford University I continued painting and drawing and held a successful exhibition during this time. Over the course of my early adult years I worked with online graphic and marketing design. At one point I free-lanced as a street-based portrait artist in Spain and I have commissioned and sold work across the world, having travelled extensively and lived in London, New York, Sydney and now New Zealand. Now that my children have grown I have had more time to resume my painting which I have done with 100% commitment to developing my technique, style and personal voice. I grew up in Birmingham in the West Midlands in England and always longed to be by the sea or a large body of water. I rowed at university and have been involved in the rowing world again with my sons. My life journey has brought me to the South Island of New Zealand where I am close to the beach and can take daily beach walks and swims (in the Summer) as well as seeing the Southern Alps from our home.

My style tends towards realism and I have used oil paint extensively, using traditional Old Master techniques. In the last couple of years I have branched out to inlude mixed media and more abstract form. I spent some time in Spain in 2024 where I observed universal human relations of parents, children, friends and lovers showing care and connection with the beach and the Mediterranean as the medium. This resulted in the “Lifelines” series. Since that I have become more and more interested in the blurring of the boundaries between human and water. Is it the water that abstracts the more solid human form, or is the human form the culmination of the fluidity of water which forms most of the human body? We know in theory that most of matter is space and energy and illusion and yet it moves us in certain ways and we respond, which is what I continually aim to capture. Although other themes and subjects grab my attention and absorption as a painter, I continue to return explore the theme of water itself and of human interaction with water.