About Amy C Clarke
I’m Amy, an impressionistic figurative painter, academic and writer (also horse rider, mother to a cat and a border collie, and drinker of tea). I live and work just outside the beautiful city of Bath, U.K, with my husband and our attention-seeking pets. I love painting and making colourful art that brings joy to other people’s lives.
I paint and sell both landscapes and bird art
I paint contemporary colourful landscapes
I am drawn to colour & to scenes that tell a story
Detailed sunset skies
I focus on colour and movement to make landscapes full of emotion, memories and adventure
I have been making art since I was a child but only starting practicing more professionally around 8 years ago. After receiving my BA in English Literature, followed by a first-class master’s degree in eighteenth-century studies at the University of Southampton, I began a year long daily watercolour painting project ‘Beautiful Everyday’ which was exhibited at the Oxmarket Centre of Arts in Chichester, U.K.
I believe art should contain and portray stories…
Although my career seems varied I see myself predominantly as a storyteller. I have been writing short stories, plays and poetry since I was a teenager, experimenting and developing my voice over time. Stories run through the captured moments in a painting as clearly for me as those by my pen or through the pages of history in my research. Each of my paintings is inspired by somewhere I have visited and the memories and emotions that I felt there influence the colours and movement of the artwork. I want my work to pull the viewer in and spark memories and deep feelings in them too, so the paintings can tell stories of your own or stories still to come. In addition to painting landscapes and sunsets I am working on my debut novel. I am the winner of the Winchester Writers Festival ‘First Three Pages of a Novel’ competition 2018, my plays have been performed at Chichester Festival Theatre and I have published short stories. You can find some of them here.
Academic background
I began my doctoral research in 2016, something which I had never imagined I could do until my master’s degree. My thesis, ‘Female Dishonour, Scandal and Celebrity in Eighteenth-Century England, c.1750-1790’, explores the public life of women involved with highly publicised crime at this time, revealing the reasons why they became so well known and popular with audiences, how their ‘fame’ was handled by the growing print and entertainment industry in England in the eighteenth-century, and the ways these women reacted to and influenced their newfound celebrity. I now hold a PhD in History and work on educating other students in the humanities. I am also working on a handful of research projects centred around the idea of historical celebrity and public identity in the eighteenth century.
Alongside this I have worked with heritage sites such as Chawton House, to develop their visitor experience and enable self-led tours of the house. I have also helped to design material for and tutor on the University of Southampton’s Jane Austen Futurelearn course.
I believe art…
- should represent the beautiful moments in people’s lives and hold their favourite memories
- art is important in everyone’s daily life
- buying artwork is a way to express yourself and the process should be exciting and make you happy
- that purchasing art is for everyone and doesn’t need to be scary
- contains a little piece of the artist, and that is a beautiful thing
My blog is an online journal of my thoughts and revelations, about doubt and self-confidence, and making my dream of a creative life in the countryside a reality. Hopefully you’ll find it full of interesting and relatable thoughts and advice whatever your lifestyle.
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Amy x
