Encouraged by her artist friend Kurt Jackson who told her that; the first ten years are the worst, she has been working in her kitchen between doing a part time job ever since. Taking copious photographs of urban wild life and manipulating them on a computer to use for reference for her paintings.

She said that she is overawed and very encouraged about having won the prize as there were so many entries.

This painting is the second in a series that she is currently working on for a show next year, provisionally entitled 'London Cultivation'. Its theme is the gardens, allotments and public planting in and around inner London. Belle enjoys London's enormous range of cultivation and finds some of the inventiveness of public planting truly inspirational and illuminating the most dull and depressed areas. She says of her winning painting:-

To convey this meadow-like corner, I've mixed the paint with turpentine to a very runny consistency. And, by allowing each layer to dry before scattering, flicking and dropping on the next one, I've tried to 'grow' the painting in sympathy with its theme. This is a technique I have developed to express the random nature of growth itself, and is an exploration into paint texture and its relationship with the subject. This will be my second show at the Print House Gallery, the first can be seen by visiting

Information about the artist Belle Robinson

This is just what I wanted the 'British Women Artists' web site to achieve; exposure for an artist that may not move in the cliquey and snobbish over intellectual and often ageist art world. I think I am as delighted as Belle.

JoWonder