An interview with Artists and Illustrators magazine Artist of the Year 2017 winner Anna Perlin from Harpdenden

After a total of 50 artists were shortlisted to exhibit their word at the Mall Galleries in London, Anna Perlin won the national award at a prize giving event at the end of January.

The prize was £1,000 cash, a year’s supply of art materials from Cass Art supplies, and gallery representation from London’s Thackeray Gallery.

We spoke to Anna to find out more about her and her work…

How did you develop a passion for art?

I’ve loved being creative - painting and drawing in particular - for as long as I can remember. My parents always told me that I used to sit and draw for hours as a child and throughout school I was always known as the ‘arty’ one.

My mum is very creative too and is an amazing quilt maker, so I got a lot of my early passion for art from her and was encouraged to create art a lot when I was growing up. We used to go into London to the V&A and Royal Academy as well as other galleries so that gave me an appreciation for art as well as a love of creating it.

Where and when did you train or are you self-taught?

I’m a self-taught artist, it wasn’t really encouraged or talked about as a possible career choice when I was at school. I did Textile Design and Management at university and then went into the commercial side of it in product management and branding.

I really enjoyed working in companies like Disney but I painted a lot in my spare time and my passion for art grew after leaving university. I did some evening courses at The Art Academy in London, and later joined a great art society (Hertford Art Society) which did lots of workshops, demonstrations and critiques.

Your work is inspired by the British rural landscape. What is it about the natural world that keeps you coming back to it as a subject?

I grew up in a tiny Oxfordshire hamlet of 29 houses. Our house was on a bridleway opposite a cow farm, surrounded by fields, and the nearest shop was miles away. We had dogs so we were big on walking and often went on holiday walking round Britain.

It wasn’t until I’d left home and was living in a city that I realised how much I loved the British countryside though - we live in such a beautiful country. I paint for me and what I would like to put up on my walls, which is a window onto the landscape of the countryside where I live and where I grew up, and the walks and British holidays with my family.

Tell me about your artistic style

I started out painting in oils having experimented with other traditional mediums. This was partly because I was self-taught, so I initially imagined ‘proper’ artists used oils so I thought if I wanted to be taken seriously as an artist that’s what I should use. I did click with oils and loved using them quite impasto, so lots of texture still, but over time I became more confident in experimenting how to express what I wanted to without thinking about how my art would be perceived.

I like some American street artists and collage artists, plus my mum gave me some quilting fabric cast offs, so over a few years my style morphed from creating texture with oil paint, to creating texture with collage. Collage also lends itself to other mixed media so lots more experimenting and I now have some favourites including charcoal and oil pastels with the collage used with acrylic paint, and then I still sometimes use oil bars. For me the mixed media creates layers in my paintings that lead your eye through it.

Is it the first time you’ve entered Artist of the Year?

I hadn’t entered in the past as I always saw the finalists and winners and thought ‘wow, one day I want to be as good as them!’ I guess for the first time I felt I had something different enough that I was also very happy with and so I felt ready to enter.

I created Brambles and Bluebells last spring because I wanted to paint that painting and create some of the enjoyment of my walks in the bluebells wood. I’d had it on my wall and loved it so I felt happy putting it up for someone else to judge as it didn’t matter what anyone else thought in the end, I loved it enough anyway.Is it the first time you’ve entered Artist of the Year?

Do you have any advice for entering and being successful in competitions?

I personally wouldn’t ever create a painting specifically for a competition. If you paint for someone else you could get very dejected as it’s impossible to predict or fully understand what they’re looking for. If you’ve created a piece of artwork for yourself which you are very pleased with then you shouldn’t ever be too unhappy with the outcome on entering a competition as you’ve done your best and pleased yourself. Also if you do get selected, making sure you present your work in the very best way with great framing is also crucial. I have a great local framer (Artscape, Harpenden) who I’ve spent hours with making sure we got framing right as it can make or break a piece of artwork.

Do you have any advice for entering and being successful in competitions?

I personally wouldn’t ever create a painting specifically for a competition. If you paint for someone else you could get very dejected as it’s impossible to predict or fully understand what they’re looking for. If you’ve created a piece of artwork for yourself which you are very pleased with then you shouldn’t ever be too unhappy with the outcome on entering a competition as you’ve done your best and pleased yourself. Also if you do get selected, making sure you present your work in the very best way with great framing is also crucial. I have a great local framer (Artscape, Harpenden) who I’ve spent hours with making sure we got framing right as it can make or break a piece of artwork.

More on Anna at annaperlin.com.