Magpie - Rosie Burns

"Obsessive-creative is probably an accurate description. I am a magpie for collecting images. I use a camera, my mobile phone, and little postcard-sized watercolours to collect images from journeys in cars, and on trains and buses."

Some of the pictures are worked up into larger studio paintings, while others are finished pieces that capture a moment, such as ‘Meadow Hill Farm’, made on the wobbly train journey form Barnstaple to Exeter.

Rosie's seventh solo exhibition at Harbour House includes printmaking, sculpture, ceramics, oil painting and watercolours.

Based in North Devon, Rosie runs a monthly life drawing group, offering local artists the opportunity to share the costs of a life model and large studio space. Her own work from the model is in pen, watercolour and oil paint, occasionally in clay, and she often makes printmaking plates too.

"I like the immediacy of working from the model, and the challenge of capturing the weight and balance of a pose in a limited time."

Rosie has been a full-time artist since 2004, following a spell as a secondary school art teacher. She has also managed an art gallery, and been involved in community-based art projects alongside selling her work through galleries, solo shows and artists' collectives. She currently works as a chef, and has a passion for her garden and her rescue hens.

Rosie has had a busy 12 months since her last solo show at Harbour House, with shows at 12 different venues, including 14 The Gallery at Torrington, G39 and Atelier Gallery in Barnstaple, and Gloss, Exeter. She took part in the North Devon Festival Art Trek, held a solo show at Retrovia in Bideford, and is currently working towards a show at the Bristol Guild Gallery in August 2012.

www.rosieburnsartist.com

For more information visit http://www.harbourhouse.org.uk/gallery-RBurns12.html