Sutton Coldfield School of Art 1972 Loughborough College of Art 1973 – 1976 Royal Academy Schools 1976 - 1979

Foundation Course Diploma BA Hons. Fine Art Painting MA Fine Art Painting

BRENDA EVANS (comments by Bernard R Dunstan RA)

 Making a watercolour must seem to us who use other, more forgiving media rather like walking a tight-rope. It has somehow to be kept fresh, luminous and transparent through all the stages and changes that observation and meditation demand. These difficulties aren't decreased, rather increased, by the relative immobility of the subject that Brenda Evans has so successfully made her own - the domestic still-life; to plod on towards stodginess is even easier there. What I admire about these watercolours is their immediacy, their intimacy, the feeling they give me that this bunch of flowers has been brought as a present, that hat belongs to someone, that table was the scene of a talkative meal with friends. Nowhere is there a hint of the frightful impersonality of the still-life that has been arranged to be painted, which has no other existence. All her subjects have arrived in front of her eye with a history of their own; they have been seen, and as Sickert said, "demand to be painted". 

Bernard Dunstan, R.A.

All who have visited the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in London over the past few years must know Brenda’s work. Born in 1954 she studied for three years at Loughborough's School of Art and went on to a three-year scholarship at the Royal Academy Schools.

She is mainly influenced by Bonnard and Vuillard, being attracted by the intimate nature of their subject matter and the way both artists had control over their own world in paint.

Although Brenda worked in oils as a student, she has become noted as a water-colourist after she left the R.A. Schools. She used to live in bed-sits and if she worked in oils the landlord would always complain about the smell from the paint, so she turned to watercolour. Later she received a commission for a picture of one of the holes at Morton Hall Golf Club, in Edinburgh, Scotland. Shortly after this she had a watercolour accepted for the London Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, which was purchased by Princess Michael of Kent. She has since sold watercolours to many other famous and discerning people including Ronnie Corbet.

She has established her reputation as a painter of still life, which is always charming but never sweet or sentimental. Her work is often based on food on a table in front of an open window. She also paints picnics and scenes in her garden and more recently her work has acquired a nautical flavour.

Brenda's titles are always unusual and reflect her light-hearted approach to art. She likes to create associations with people or events within a picture and then maybe refer to this in the title. She was once told by the owner of a gallery that a lady had liked one of her watercolours but had not bought it because she found the title too "Woman's Ownish" …Brenda immediately called her next picture Woman's Ownish !