Kerry Grant

Kerry Grant RGN. BscHons, PGCE, MA

Kerry is a mixed media artist who lives and works in St Ives, West Cornwall. Her preferred medium is watercolour painting and collage. She also paints in acrylic and enjoys creating botanical monoprints. She is an active member of St Ives Arts Club and Associate member of The Penwith Society of Arts in St Ives, where she regularly exhibits her work. She has also co-founded Cornwall Art Workshops, which is a monthly programme of skills- based arts training, held in the famous St Ives Arts Club, where the original St Ives Colony of Artists began.

Her love of West Cornwall is the main inspiration for her work. “I am particularly drawn to the wild places of West Cornwall. Over the years me and my little dog have enjoyed walking the West Penwith landscape, from moorland to cliff path and cove. I always have my sketch book and watercolour set with me, and love the simple pleasure of sitting on a rock and sketching in a view that stretches out before me. I am also fascinated by the micro landscapes of rockpools, pattens in the bedrock or lichen blooms, and not forgetting the sheer delights of the wild flora and fauna that I am so lucky to have surrounding me.”

“I try to incorporate my botanical monoprints into my land or seascapes via the process of papier colle, in order to create seamless collage within my painting. For example, by taking a gelli print of seaweed foraged from a beach, then tearing the print into irregular strips and pasting them into the waves of a seascape, I find it adds an unplanned energy which lifts the painting into a new and dynamic place. The same applies to paintings of little cobbled streets, rusty harbour boats, and floral studies, where I use different forms of printed papers to decorate my water-media base paintings.”

Prior to moving to Cornwall and devoting her time to full-time painting, Kerry worked as a Clinical Nurse Specialist and Head of Palliative Care Education within the Hospice movement. Working therapeutically with people facing the immense challenges of life- threatening illness and dying, she co-developed an innovative creative arts retreat programme, which helped patients explore their own creativity, at a poignant and important part of their life journey.